Our Lady of Guadalupe

from Jody Brant Smith, The Image of Guadalupe: Myth or Miracle? (Garden City, NY: Image Books, revised edition, 1984), pp. 3-12.

Her head is tilted to the right. Her greenish eyes are cast downward in an expression of gentle concern. The mantle that covers her head and shoulders is of a deep turquoise, studded with gold stars and bordered in gold. Her hair is black, her complexion olive. She stands alone, her hands clasped in prayer, an angel at her feet.

She is Our Lady of Guadalupe, a life-sized image of the Virgin Mary that appeared miraculously on the cactus cloth tilma, or cape, of Juan Diego, an Aztec peasant, in 1531, a mere dozen years after Hernan Cortes conquered Mexico for the King of Spain. For four hundred and fifty years the colors of the portrait have remained as bright as if they were painted yesterday. The coarse-woven cactus cloth, which seldom lasts even twenty years, shows no signs of decay....

According to sixteenth-century documents in Nahuatl, the native Aztec language, Juan Diego, his wife, and his uncle had been among the first Aztecs to be converted by the Christian missionaries who had accompanied the Spanish soldiers to Mexico. Juan was fifty years old at the time of his conversion, an advanced age in an era when few lived past forty. A religion that promised redemption and eternal life was far different from the harsh beliefs of the Aztecs, whose gods demanded human sacrifice. When Juan was thirteen he may have witnessed the bloody ceremony dedicating a new temple in nearby Tenochtitlan (Mexico City) in which some eighty thousand captives were put to death.

Juan's wife died two years after her conversion. They had no children and Juan was left alone to take care of his aged uncle, who had been like a father to him. They lived in a hut with a thatched roof and dirt floor. Members of the Aztec servant class, they were among the poorest inhabitants of their small village five miles from Mexico City.

On Saturday, December 9, 1531, Juan Diego left his village before daybreak so he would be in time to hear Mass celebrated at the church of Santiago in the nearby village of Tlatilolco. On his way, as he passed around the base of a hill called Tepeyac, near which there had once been a shrine to the Aztec mother goddess, he heard a burst of birdsong. At this bleak time of the year, few birds remained, and Juan looked up to see where the song was coming from. On the summit of the hill he saw a bright light.

Suddenly the melodious birdsong ceased, as abruptly as it had begun. From the barren rocks at the top of the hill a voice called him: "Juan! Juanito!"

He climbed the hill quickly and saw on the summit a young woman who seemed to be no more than fourteen years old, standing in a golden mist. She beckoned to him and he knelt before her radiant presence "Juanito,"she said, "the most humble of my sons, where are you going?"

"My Lady," he replied, "I am on my way to church to hear Mass."

"Know then," she continued, "that I am the ever-virgin Holy Mary, Mother of the True God. I wish that a temple be erected here without delay. Go to the bishop's palace in Mexico City, and tell him what I desire."

Assuring her that he would carry out her mission, Juan Diego descended the hill and continued along the road leading to Mexico City.

At the bishop's palace the servants kept him waiting for hours, but at last he was ushered in to the bishop's presence.

Juan de Zumarraga, a Franciscan who was to be formally elected bishop two years later, had come to Mexico in 1528 at the command of the King of Spain, Charles V. He was a powerful but kindly man, who used his influence to lessen the cruelty with which the Spanish soldiers treated the Indians.

He listened sympathetically as his interpreter translated Juan Diego's words from Nahuatl into Spanish, and in reply told Juan Diego to visit him again at some unspecified future date. It was clear to the Indian that he had not been believed.

On his way home, with the sun setting in the west, he climbed once more to the top of Tepeyac and again saw the Virgin Mary. He told her that he had delivered her message but that the bishop did not seem to believe him. He begged her to entrust her mission to someone more important who would be more likely to be believed. But the Virgin insisted that the humble Indian was her chosen messenger. "I command that you go again tomorrow," she said, "and see the bishop. Go in my name, and make known my wish that he has to build a temple here. And again tell him that the ever-virgin Holy Mary, Mother of God, sent you."

Juan Diego promised to follow her instructions and return the following afternoon, at sunset, to give her the bishop's reply.

The next day, a Sunday, Juan again left his home before dawn to go to the village church. It was nearly ten o'clock before the morning services were completed and Juan was able to leave for the bishop's palace. On arriving there, the humble Indian found it even more difficult to be admitted to the bishop's presence. Bishop Zumarraga had not expected the Aztec to return so soon.

This time the bishop questioned Juan Diego more closely. The vivid detail with which the Aztec described his two meetings with the supposedly Heavenly Lady led him to believe that Juan was telling the truth. But perhaps the Indian was deluded. Zumarraga would have been happy to build another church to the honor and glory of the Blessed Virgin, yet if Juan Diego's story was a hoax, the Church could lose a great deal of the ground it had gained with the Indians.

What was needed was proof. He urged Juan to bring a sign from the Heavenly Lady that she had indeed spoken to him, and the bishop would then eagerly comply with her request. Juan agreed without hesitation. As soon as the Indian left, Zumarraga ordered two servants to follow him and report back, but as they neared Tepeyac hill, they lost sight of him. They thought that he had deliberately eluded them, and they reported back to the bishop that he was not to be trusted.

Juan Diego had no idea he was being followed. On the top of the hill he gave the Blessed Virgin the bishop's message, and she told him to return the next day when she would give him the sign the bishop had requested.

That was not to be, because when Juan reached home he found that his uncle was desperately ill. The next day, a Monday, his condition had worsened. The uncle asked Juan to go at daybreak to the village church and bring back a priest to hear his confession, for he was certain he was dying.

Before dawn on Tuesday, Juan Diego went to summon a priest. As he neared Tepeyac hill, he decided to skirt the hill to avoid being detained by any further meeting with the Virgin Mary. But as he rounded the hill, he saw her descending to the plain. He was frightened that he had disappointed her and worried about his uncle, but she reassured him that his uncle would recover and that she was still anxious to provide the bishop with the sign he had requested. She instructed Juan to climb the hill to the same place where he had first seen her and spoken with her, and there to pick some roses and bring them back to her.

Juan climbed the hill with misgivings. It was early December and the barren hilltop was touched with frost. If there had ever been any roses blooming there, they would not be there now.

But when he reached the hilltop he found several varieties of Roses of Castile in full bloom, the petals touched with morning dew. He gathered the roses and put them in his tilma, his loose cape made of two pieces of cactus cloth stitched together. He brought the blossoms to the Virgin and she arranged them in the tilma, saying: "This is the proof and the sign you will take to the bishop. You will tell him in my name that he will see in them my wish and that he will have to comply with it. Rigorously I command you that only before the presence of the bishop will you unfold your mantle and disclose what you are carrying. You will tell him that I ordered you to climb the hilltop, to go and cut the flowers; and all that you saw and admired, so you can induce the prelate to give his support that a temple be built and erected as I have asked."

When he reached the bishop's palace he again had difficulty gaining admittance, until the bishop's servants saw the out-of-season roses peeking from the folds of the tilma. They informed the bishop of the gift the Indian was bringing him, and Zumarraga, guessing that what Juan Diego carried was the proof he had requested, ordered that he be admitted immediately.

When Juan Diego entered, he knelt before the bishop and described his last encounter with "the Lady from Heaven." He then stood and untied his tilma from around his neck so that the roses fell on the floor in a heap. Suddenly, on the cactus cloth of the tilma, there appeared a brightly colored image of the Virgin Mary. The bishop fell to his knees, as did all those present.

The miraculous picture played a major role in advancing the Church's mission in Mexico. In just seven years, from 1532 to 1538, eight million Indians were converted to Christianity. In one day alone, one thousand couples were married in the sacrament of matrimony.

Throughout the four hundred and fifty years since its first appearance, adoration of the Image of Guadalupe has remained the most striking aspect of Roman Catholic worship in Mexico. Northrop writes of seeing the Image "on the windshield of taxicab after taxicab in Mexico City and in the front interior of almost every bus."

Less pervasive but perhaps more remarkable is the presence of the Image of Guadalupe in churches around the world. Copies of the original or paintings depicting the miracle on the hilltop hang on the walls of churches in Madrid, Rome, Jerusalem, Paris, and even in Taiwan. In the western hemisphere Our Lady of Guadalupe has been crowned in ceremonies in New York City, Newark, New Jersey, and in Cuba, Nicaragua, Uruguay, and Argentina. In every country in Latin America copies of the miraculous picture hang in the churches.

For those millions who come to kneel and pray before the original Image, protected behind bulletproof glass in the new cathedral in Mexico City, Our Lady of Guadalupe with her expression of motherly concern, her olive skin and dark hair, arouses unique feelings of trust and closeness. Many ask for her intercession in heaven to solve their problems on earth, and many return to give thanks when their petitions appear to have been successful.

Tales of the miracles she has wrought abound. In the early seventeenth century, when floods almost destroyed Mexico City, the Image escaped unharmed. In 1921, during the Mexican revolution, a bomb was planted in some flowers placed before the altar of the basilica. The Image hung close behind the altar. Although the bomb exploded, damaging the altar, no one was hurt. Even the glass in front of the picture was unbroken.