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Who is Our Lady of Guadalupe
and why is she so important to America?
Who is Our Lady of Guadalupe? She is Mary, Mother of Jesus, the Blessed Virgin.
On December 9, 1531 (Saturday, Juan Diego, a Christian convert, was on his way to attend Mass two and a half miles away at Tlatelolco. Suddenly, Juan hears beautiful music and a woman’s voice calling him to the top of Tepeyac Hill, which he is just passing. At the top of the hill he sees a radiantly beautiful woman, who reveals that she is the Virgin Mary and instructs him to go to the bishop and tell him that a temple should be built in her honor at the bottom of the hill.
Juan Diego goes immediately to Tlatelolco to the palace of Bishop Juan de Zumárraga, a Franciscan friar. The bishop receives him kindly but, does not believe Juan Diego’s story. A discouraged Juan Diego goes back and admits his failure to the Virgin. The Lady directs him to go back to the bishop and repeat the request.
The next day, Juan Diego returns to the bishop’s palace to try again. The bishop tells Juan Diego that he needs some sign to believe that it is really the heavenly Lady who has sent him. Juan Diego tells the Virgin of the bishop’s request, and she promises to fulfill it the next day when he returns to Tepeyac Hill.
On Monday, Juan Diego fails to keep his appointment with Mary because his uncle has become gravely ill and Juan went to get him a doctor. He fails to find anyone and tells his dying uncle that he will go to Tlatelolco the next morning and bring a priest who would hear his confession and prepare him for death.
December 12, 1531 (Tuesday). At a very early hour, Juan Diego is rushing toward Tlatelolco to find a priest for his dying uncle. He tries to avoid Our Lady by going around to the other side of Tepeyac Hill. The Lady, however, comes down the hill to meet him. She listens to Juan Diego’s excuse for not keeping his appointment and tells him: “Your uncle will not die of this sickness; be assured that he is healthy.” (Our Lady also appears to his uncle and cures him.) Juan Diego is greatly relieved.
Our Lady then tells him to go to the top of the hill and Juan Diego surprisingly found flowers, in spite of the winter frost. He gathers them and takes them to Our Lady who arranges them in his tilma and instructs him to take them to the bishop as the sign he had requested.
When Juan Diego arrives before the bishop, he opens his mantle and lets the roses fall to the floor. A beautiful portrait of Our Lady appears on the coarse fabric of the Indian’s mantle. The bishop is filled with amazement. And before long a temple is built in Mary’s honor.
The mantle or Tilma—still the original image, complete and intact—is in the Tepeyac Shrine, where millions of pilgrims from the whole world visit Her to pray and beg favors from our Heavenly Father. Her message confers her the power of being the first and most important evangelist in the New World.
WHY IS OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE SO IMPORTANT TO AMERICA?
The appearance of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico 470 years ago was not an isolated event intended only for Indians, the Mexicans, or Mexican-Americans. She is just as important today as she was centuries ago, and she is important for everyone, for she has been designated the patroness of all the Americas.
She appeared to Juan Diego in the very center of the Americas. At the time she appeared, in December of 1531, there were no national boundaries in this hemisphere. The Rio Grande River, for example, was only a stream, and was not a boundary separating the United States and Mexico.
She has been canonized the Patroness of Mexico and of all Latin America. In 1935 Pious XI extended the patronage of the Virgin of Guadalupe to the Philippines.
1945--Pope Pius XII extended her reign even further by declaring her Empress of all the Americas, North, South, and Central.
"For we are certain," he said,
"that as long as you are
recognized as Queen and Mother,
Mexico and America will be safe."
1961 Pope John XXIII prayed to her as Mother of the Americas. He addressed her as Mother and Teacher of the Faith to the peoples of the Americas.
Pope John Paul II has trusted to the
maternal care of Holy Mary of Guadalupe, "the destiny of this nation and of the whole Continent." He entrusted the future of the
Continent to her and declared that the
Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe,
Mother and Evangelizer of America,
be celebrated throughout the Continent on
December 12. He has called her Mother of Hope, Mother of America and the Star of the New Evangelization.
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