Apparitions and miracles of the Virgin Mary in Guadalupe, Mexico
A look at the apparitions and miracles of the Virgin Mary with angels in Guadalupe, Mexico, in 1531, in an event known as "Our Lady of Guadalupe":
Hear an angelic choir
Just before dawn on December 9, 1531, a poor 57-year-old widower named Juan Diego was walking through the hills outside Tenochtitlan, Mexico (the Guadalupe area near modern Mexico City), while going to church. He began to hear music as he approached Tepeyac Hill base, and initially thought that the wonderful sounds were the morning songs of local birds in the area. But the more Juan listened, the more the music played, unlike anything he had ever heard before. Juan began to wonder if he was listening to a heavenly choir of singing angels.
Meeting with Mary on a Hill
Juan looked east (the direction from which the music came), but as he did so, the singing vanished, and instead he heard a female voice calling his name several times from the top of the hill. Then he climbed to the top, where he saw the figure of a smiling girl of about 14 or 15 years old, bathed in golden and bright light. The light shone outward from her body in golden rays that illuminated the cacti, rocks and grass around her in a variety of beautiful colors.
The girl was dressed in a Mexican-style embroidered red and gold dress and a turquoise cloak covered with golden stars. He had Aztec traits, just as Juan did since he had an Aztec heritage. Instead of standing directly on the ground, the girl was on a type of crescent-shaped platform that an angel held for her above the ground.
"Mother of the true God who gives life"
The girl started talking to Juan in her native language, Nahuatl. He asked where she was going, and he told her that he had gone to church to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ, that he had learned to love so much that he went to church to attend daily Mass whenever he could. Smiling, then the girl said to him: “Dear little son, I love you. I want you to know who I am: I am the Virgin Mary, mother of the true God who gives life ”.
"Build a church here"
He continued: “I would like you to build a church here so that I can give my love, my compassion, my help and my defense to all who seek it in this place, because I am your mother and I want you to have trust me and invoke me. In this place, I would like to hear people's cries and prayers and send remedies for their misery, pain and suffering. "
Then Maria asked Juan to go and meet the bishop of Mexico, Don Fray Juan de Zumaraga, to tell the bishop that Santa Maria had sent him and wanted a church to be built near the Tepeyac hill. Juan knelt before Mary and vowed to do what she asked him to do.
Although Juan never met the bishop and didn't know where to find him, he asked around after reaching the city and eventually found the bishop's office. Bishop Zumaraga finally met Juan after making him wait a long time. Juan told him what he had seen and heard during Maria's appearance and asked him to start plans to build a church on Tepeyac hill. But Bishop Zumaraga told Juan that he was not ready to consider such an important undertaking.
A second meeting
Dejected, Juan began the long journey back to the countryside and, on the way, he met Mary again, standing on the hill where they had already met. He knelt before her and told her what had happened with the bishop. Then he asked her to choose someone else as her messenger, as she had done her best and failed to get the church plans started.
Maria replied: “Listen, little son. There are many that I could send. But you are the one I chose for this task. So, go back to the bishop tomorrow morning and tell him again that the Virgin Mary sent you to ask him to build a church in this place. "
Juan agreed to visit Bishop Zumaraga again the next day, despite his fears of being dismissed again. "I am your humble servant, so I gladly obey," he said to Mary.
Ask for a sign
Bishop Zumaraga was surprised to see Juan again so soon. This time he listened more closely to Juan's story and asked questions. But the bishop suspected that Juan had indeed seen a miraculous apparition of Mary. He asked Juan to ask Mary to give him a miraculous sign confirming her identity, so she would know for sure that it was Mary who asked him to build a new church. Then Bishop Zumaraga discreetly asked two servants to follow Juan on his way home and report to him what they observed.
The servants followed Juan to Tepeyac Hill. So, the servants reported, Juan disappeared and they could not find him even after searching the area.
Meanwhile, Juan was meeting Mary for the third time on top of the hill. Maria listened to what Juan had told her about her second meeting with the bishop. Then he told Juan to come back at dawn the next day to meet her once again on the hill. Maria said: “I will give you a sign for the bishop so that he will believe you and he will not doubt again or suspect anything about you again. Please know that I will reward you for all your hard work. Now go home to rest and go in peace. "
His date is missing
But Juan ended up losing his date with Mary the next day (on a Monday) because, after returning home, he discovered that his elderly uncle, Juan Bernardino, was seriously ill with fever and needed his nephew to take care of him . On Tuesday, Juan's uncle seemed on the verge of dying, and asked Juan to go find a priest to administer the sacrament of the Last Rites before he died.
Juan left to do it, and on the way he met Mary waiting for him - despite the fact that Juan had avoided going to Tepeyac Hill because he was embarrassed for not being able to keep his Monday appointment with her. Juan wanted to try to get through the crisis with his uncle before he had to walk into town to meet Bishop Zumaraga again. He explained everything to Mary and asked her for forgiveness and understanding.
Mary replied that Juan did not need to worry about accomplishing the mission he had given him; he promised to cure his uncle. Then he told him that he would give him the sign requested by the bishop.
Arrange the roses in a poncho
"Go to the top of the hill and cut the flowers that grow there," Maria said to Juan. "Then bring them to me."
Although frost covered the top of Tepeyac hill in December and no flowers naturally grew there during the winter, Juan has climbed the hill since Mary asked and was surprised to discover a group of fresh roses growing there. He cut them all and took his tilma (poncho) to gather them inside the poncho. Then Juan ran back to Mary.
Mary took the roses and carefully placed them inside Juan's poncho as if she were drawing a drawing. So after Juan put the poncho back on, Mary tied the corners of the poncho behind Juan's neck so that none of the roses fell.
Then Maria sent Juan back to Bishop Zumaraga, with instructions to go directly there and not show anyone the roses until the bishop saw them. He reassured Juan that he would heal his dying uncle in the meantime.
A miraculous image appears
When Juan and Bishop Zumaraga met again, Juan told the story of his last meeting with Mary and said that he had sent him roses as a sign that it was really she who was talking to Juan. Bishop Zumaraga had privately prayed to Maria for a sign of roses - fresh Castilian roses, like those that grew in his country of Spanish origin - but Juan was not aware of it.
Juan then untied his poncho and the roses fell out. Bishop Zumaraga was amazed to see that they were fresh Castilian roses. Then he and all the others present noticed an image of Maria imprinted on the fibers of Juan's poncho.
The detailed image showed Mary with a specific symbolism that conveyed a spiritual message that the illiterate natives of Mexico could easily understand, so that they could simply look at the symbols of the image and understand the spiritual meaning of Mary's identity and the mission of his son, Jesus Christ, in the world.
Bishop Zumaraga showed the image in the local cathedral until a church was built in the Tepeyac Hill area, then the image was moved there. Within seven years of the first appearance of the image on the poncho, about 8 million Mexicans who previously had pagan beliefs became Christians.
After Juan returned home, his uncle had completely recovered and told Juan that Mary had come to see him, appearing in a globe of golden light in his bedroom to heal him.
Juan was the official keeper of the poncho for the remaining 17 years of his life. He lived in a small room adjacent to the church that housed the poncho and there every day he met visitors to tell the story of his encounters with Maria.
Maria's image on Juan Diego's poncho remains on display today; it is now housed inside the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, which is located near the site of the apparition on Tepeyac Hill. Several million spiritual pilgrims visit every year to pray for the image. Although a poncho made of cactus fibers (like Juan Diego's) would naturally disintegrate within about 20 years, Juan's poncho shows no signs of decay almost 500 years after the image of Mary first appeared on it.