Our Lady of Guadalupe

"The eyes that gaze on it now see it exactly as Bishop Zumárraga and the others saw it when the roses spilled from Juan's mantle and it was first revealed. Millions have viewed it..."

Image of Our Lady of Guadalupe
Legionaries of Christ, Thornwood, NY

Our Lady of Guadalupe pray for us.

Prayer to Our Lady of Guadalupe

Our Lady of Gaudalupe, mystical rose, make intercession for Holy Church, protect the Sovereign Pontiff, help all those who invoke thee in their necessities, and since thou art the ever Virgin Mary and Mother of the true God, obtain for us from thy most holy Son the grace of keeping our faith, sweet hope in the midst of the bitterness of life, burning charity and the precious gift of final perseverance. Amen.

Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe

Picture source

By now everyone should be familiar with the story of Guadalupe--"The story of an Indian of simple faith, and of the Mother of God. The basilica which today is the Shrine of Our lady of Guadalupe is a part of the teeming metropolis that is Mexico City.  But back of its great high altar is the tilma of Juan Diego, whose love and devotion toward Mary, the Mother of God, has given the world one of the greatest of her shrines."

-The Holy Years of Mary by William A. McLoughlin, O.P.The John C. Winston Company

Original Image of Our Lady of Guadalupe

Picture source

"...Swiftly news of the church to be built in the precinct of the Mother-goddess on Tepeyac was carried from village to village.  The Indians' own church, requested through one of themselves!  Volunteer laborers appeared, more than could be employed.  In only thirteen days the simple chapel-like structure was completed. On the day after Christmas the sacred Image was brought to it in a great procession and installed about the altar; the church was blessed and the Mass celebrated...."

Bishop Juan de Zumárraga

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"I have had the news published-sent a messenger to Cuernavaca- an Indian to Fray Toribio-am preparing the festival and keeping with me a little longer your honor's trumpeters.  How glorious it will be!  The joy of all is indescribable.  Tell my lady the Marquesa (Cortés'' wife) that eventually I want to dedicate my cathedral to the Immaculate Conception because it was during that feast (December 8-17 in the missal used in Mexico) that God and his Blessed Mother deigned to shower the land you won with this great favor.  No more now."
The Bishop Elect, filled with joy.

Letter to the conqueror Hernán Cortés' written by Bishop Zumárraga on Christmas Eve, 1531.

Note:  Between the years 1532-38, eight million natives were baptized.

-A Woman Clothed with the Sun, edited by John J. Delaney, Image Books