Our Lady of Guadalupe

Blessed Virgin Mary
Visionary: St Juan Diego
Location: Tepeyac Hill, Mexico City
Date of Apparition: December 1531
In 1531, a poor, 57-year old widowed Indian named Juan Diego, né Cuauhtlatoatzin, meaning "Eagle That Talks," saw a vision of Our Lady, clothed with the sun. She told him that she was the Mother of the True God and asked him to have the Bishop build a church at the site she appeared. The Bishop did not believe Juan Diego, but the latter kept going back to the Bishop in total persistence. The Bishop asked for proof that what he was saying was true. The Virgin appeared to Juan again and told him to return the next day (12 December) for the proof the Bishop wanted.

Now, Juan's Uncle, Bernardino, was seriously ill at that time, so Juan went off to find a priest for him instead of going to where Our Lady had appeared. She appeared to him anyway (also simultaneously appearing to Juan's Uncle and curing him through the power of God) and told him to go to the top of a hill. When he did, he found Castilian roses blooming in the winter frost. These he gathered up into his tilma (cloak) and went to see the Bishop. There, he opened his tilma, revealing the flowers -- and an image of the Virgin "imprinted" (not painted; no one can explain the original image aside from a reference to the miraculous) on the cloak itself, the popular image we know today and as seen at left in the picture. That tilma, made of a peasant-quality cloth, should have fallen apart around 20 years after the apparition if it is made like the typical tilma of the time, but it and the miraculous image it bears remain today -- perfectly intact, with no signs of decay (if it is made of hemp, it would last longer). 

Mary's title with regard to this apparition comes from her having used the Aztec Nahuatl word, coatlaxopeuh, which means "Who Crushes the Serpent." The word when pronounced sounds much like "Guadalupe," a village in Spain. 

Because of her appearance to Juan Diego and the existence of the miraculous tilma, millions of Indians converted to Christianity from the barbaric Aztec religion that involved human sacrifice; Mexico became a Christian nation.