Our Lady of Guadalupe

Biography

Our Lady of Guadalupe, also known as Holy Mary of Guadalupe, Virgin of Guadalupe, and Maria de Guadalupe, is a title given to a picture, church, and town in Mexico. The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe is considered to represent the Immaculate Conception and is associated with the apocalyptic sign of a woman with the sun, moon, and stars. The word "Guadalupe" is of Spanish Arabic origin but may also represent certain Aztec sounds. The tradition of Our Lady of Guadalupe dates back to December 9, 1531, when the Blessed Virgin appeared to Juan Diego, a 55-year-old neophyte, on Tepeyac hill in Mexico City. She instructed him to build a temple in her honor and to deliver a message to Bishop Zumárraga. Initially, the bishop was skeptical and requested a sign from the lady. Juan Diego returned to Tepeyac hill on December 12, where the Virgin Mary met him again. She assured him that his sick uncle would be cured, and she asked him to collect roses as a sign for the bishop. Juan Diego found roses in a place where they normally wouldn't grow and gathered them in his tilma, a cloak made of coarse maguey fiber. When he presented the roses to the bishop, the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe miraculously appeared on his tilma. This image, which depicts the Virgin Mary in a standing position with an angel under her crescent feet, is considered to be a perfect representation of a maiden of fifteen. The tilma, made of two strips of fabric stitched together, is remarkably thin and open. Its material and construction were deemed unfit and unprepared by painters who examined the image. The colors used in the image, including deep gold, blue-green, and rose, have also puzzled artists due to their apparent oil, water, tempera, and other coloration techniques. Numerous testimonies, both oral and written, support the miraculous origin and influence of the image. Bishop Zumárraga wrote a letter to his brothers in Spain concerning the apparitions, and Bernal Díaz, a companion of Cortez, mentioned Guadalupe and its miracles in his writings. Various commissions of inquiry were conducted, and processes were formulated and attested for presentation in Rome. The clergy, both secular and regular, has been devoted to Our Lady of Guadalupe, with bishops fostering the devotion and even making a protestation of faith in the miracle obligatory on certain occasions. Pope Benedict XIV declared Our Lady of Guadalupe as the national patron of Mexico and established December 12 as a holiday of obligation. Pope Leo XIII approved a historical second Nocturne and ordered the image to be crowned. Pope Pius X granted indulgences for prayer before a copy of the image. The shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, located in Guadalupe Hidalgo, three miles northeast of Mexico City, has been a site of pilgrimage since 1531-1532. Initially, a shrine at the foot of Tepeyac Hill served for worship, but it was later replaced with richer shrines, a parish church, a convent, a well chapel, and a hill chapel. The shrine was aggregated to Saint John Lateran in 1754 and was designated as a basilica in 1904. Our Lady of Guadalupe is venerated as the patron of the Americas, Central America, Colorado Springs (Colorado), Corpus Christi (Texas), Dodge City (Kansas), Gallup (New Mexico), Hondarribia (Spain), Mexico, Nashville (Tennessee), New Mexico, Orange (California), Phoenix (Arizona), Pojoaque Indian Pueblo, Ponce (Puerto Rico), Puerto Vallarta (Mexico), Sacramento (California), Salt Lake City (Utah), San Bernardino (California), Sioux City (Iowa), and Victoria (Aragua, Venezuela). The devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe has spread beyond Mexico and continues to inspire devotion and pilgrimage to this day.