Today Is the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness of the Americas

Today is the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, who is not only the beloved patroness of Mexico where she appeared, but the patroness or “empress” of all the Americas, including the US. I would like to share the wonderful story of how Jesus’s Mother appeared to a poor Aztec Indian and miraculously asserted herself as loving mother of the New World.

Both oral and written accounts of the Guadalupe apparitions have always told the same tale. Aztec convert and impoverished widower Juan Diego was hurrying down Tepeyac Hill on his way to Mass in Mexico City on December 9, 1531, when he heard beautiful music. Attempting to discover the source of the music, Juan Diego encountered a beautiful, radiant lady who revealed herself to be the Blessed Virgin Mary, Jesus’s mother. She addressed Juan Diego affectionately as her “son” and told him to go tell Bishop Zumarraga to build a church on the spot where she stood. The skeptical bishop questioned Juan Diego, listened to the aging Aztec tell his story, and then dismissed him. The bishop was a good man, but he did not believe that Our Lady had truly appeared to Juan Diego and made him her messenger.

The Blessed Virgin was waiting for Juan Diego on Tepeyac Hill when he returned with his disappointing news. Our Lady, being already aware of the bishop’s disbelief, serenely instructed Juan Diego to go back to the bishop the next day and ask again for her church. During the second visit, the bishop began to be irritated, and asked for a sign—if Juan Diego had really seen Our Lady, the “mother of the true God,” as he said, then the lady could send a sign confirming her apparition to the bishop.

But an unexpected family emergency interrupted Juan Diego’s plans. His uncle, Juan Bernardino, was dying of fever, and early on December 12 Juan Diego set off for the nearby convent to find a priest to perform Last Rites for his uncle. Juan Diego deliberately avoided Our Lady’s usual apparition spot, but she met him anyway, asking him tenderly, “What road is this thou takest, son?” With motherly affection, Our Lady assured Juan Diego that his uncle would be safe and said that Juan Diego needed to return to the bishop. “Am I not your mother?” she asked him, urging that he trust her.

Juan Diego, abashed at his behavior, asked for a sign for the bishop, so Mary sent him to gather roses which, despite the time of year, were miraculously blooming on Tepeyac Hill. Juan Diego carefully gathered many roses into his rough, plant-fiber tilma or cloak and, after Our Lady arranged the roses in the tilma, Juan Diego set off once again to see the bishop.

Thus for the third time the humble Juan Diego was ushered into the presence of the bishop of Mexico City. Juan Diego opened his tilma and let the fresh roses fall out, but was startled when the bishop and his attendants suddenly fell to their knees before him, staring in awe at his tilma. Juan Diego looked down and realized that Our Lady had not simply sent out-of-season roses as her sign—a lovely, glowing image of Our Lady, just as she appeared to Juan Diego, had miraculously appeared on the tilma. Juan Diego’s uncle was miraculously cured as well when Mary appeared to him and said she wished to be called “Santa Maria de Guadalupe.”

The bishop kneels before Juan Diego and the miraculous image of Our Lady

Despite the rough, poor material of the tilma, which would normally fall apart in a few years’ time, Juan Diego’s tilma and its miraculous image—an image which scientists and experts have endeavored in vain to explain—have remained intact and fresh for half a millennium. “Studies have repeatedly shown that no paint, pigment, undersketching, or brush strokes were used to create it. Moreover, the plant fiber of the tilma should have disintegrated after twenty years. 500 years later, they survive in beautiful condition.”

The tilma

Our Lady of Guadalupe is an Aztec princess, with the loose hair of a virgin. She stands on a moon and is surrounded by sun rays, a reference to the woman of Revelation 12, the moon borne up by an angel. Besides being a Biblical reference, the presence of the sun and moon symbolize the triumph of Christianity over the false sun and moon gods of the formerly pagan Aztecs. Mary wears a black belt, an Aztec symbol of pregnancy, and a rose-colored tunic with four-petaled flowers, perhaps a symbol of the four seasons and Creation. The false gods of the Aztecs demanded child sacrifice and death; in contrast, Our Lady gives birth to the divine child Christ, who saves mankind from death. Our Lady of Guadalupe’s head is bowed and her hands folded in prayer, indicating that she is not a goddess; but her turquoise, star-spangled mantle indicates that, though not divine, she has come from heaven.

But the details of the image are even more marvelous. Engineer Dr. José Aste Tonsmann began magnifying and studying the Guadalupe image’s eyes in 1979, and said that her eyes contain a reflection of Bishop Zumarraga and his attendants at the moment Juan Diego opened his tilma and revealed the miraculous image. Tonsmann insisted that the eyes also reflect an image of a family, apparently grandparents, parents, and several children—a beautiful reminder of the sacredness of the family in an age where the family is under constant attack.

Furthermore, experts analyzed Our Lady of Guadalupe’s mantle and discovered that the stars are not merely decorative or symbolic of her heavenly home. The “stars are positioned exactly as they would have appeared on the morning of December 12th, 1531—when the miraculous image appeared on the tilma of Juan Diego.”

Not only that, the “stars are actually a mirror image of what they would have looked like from an earthly perspective. They are arranged from the perspective of someone looking down upon them—from God’s perspective, as though the Divine Artist had placed them according to His own celestial gaze.” And the Corona Borealis or “Northern Crown” lies over Mary’s forehead, another reference to the star-crowned Revelation 12 woman, while the constellation Virgo (the Virgin) is on Mary’s breast and Leo (the lion) is over her womb. Mary the Virgin gave birth to the Messiah, called the Lion of Judah by Scripture (Rev. 5:5).

Our Lady of Guadalupe has been inspiring millions of Christians for almost 500 years now, and we need her more than ever as the atheist globalists attempt to assert tyranny in the New World Our Lady took under her maternal protection. As we pray to Our Lady of Guadalupe for her intercession with her Son Jesus, let her apparitions to Juan Diego and his uncle remind us that we, too, can do great things in Christ—that God has chosen the weak of the world to confound the strong.¹

1. 1 Cor. 1:27