on "Feast Day" - Dec. 12 Our Lady of Guadalupe - G. Keillor & O. Paz

from Writer's Almanac for this day -- originated with Minnesota Public Radio list serv
(Garrison Keillor)

Today is the Feast Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, because it was on this day in 1531 that the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe appeared on the cloak of a Mexican peasant, a man who had been baptized and given the name Juan Diego. Only 10 years earlier, Hernan Cortés had conquered Mexico and brought Christianity there. Juan Diego and his wife had embraced the new religion, and apparently were so taken with the teachings that they decided to live in celibacy after that. A few years later, Juan Diego's wife died, and so by 1531 he was a widower.

On December 9th, he was on his way to attend Mass when he heard strange music and birds chirping from a nearby hill, and someone calling his name. He followed the sounds, and saw a vision of a young woman, dressed like Aztec royalty and bathed in light. He recognized her as the Virgin Mary, and she spoke in his language, Nahuatl, telling him that she wanted a shrine in her honor built on that spot, and that he should meet with the bishop and tell him so. When Juan Diego asked her what her name was, she called herself 'Coatlaxopeuh,' [pronounced 'quatlasupe'] or 'She who crushes the serpent,' which the Spanish translated as Guadalupe, so that she became Our Lady of Guadalupe.

So Juan Diego went to Bishop Zumarraga, who was skeptical. Diego went back to the hill, defeated, but the Lady told him to try again. So he returned again to the bishop, who still didn't believe him and told him he would need a sign. But Juan Diego's uncle was dying, and he was trying to find a bishop to administer the last rites, and he avoided the hill, hoping to deal with his uncle first. However, the Lady appeared once again, this time down on his path, assuring him that his uncle would not die. She asked him to climb up the hill and pick the roses there. Even though the hill was a barren spot, not growing much more than cactus, Juan Diego found it covered in the type of roses that grew in Spain, where Bishop Zumarraga was born. The Lady helped Juan Diego arrange the roses inside his cloak, or tilma. She told him not to open his tilma until he reached the bishop.  When he opened his tilma for Bishop Zumarraga, the roses fell out and an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared on the fabric of his tilma. The bishop was so amazed that he got down on his knees and agreed to build the shrine, whose construction started days later. It became the Basilica of St. Mary.
Each year, more than 20 million pilgrims visit the Basilica of St. Mary in Mexico City. Juan Diego was canonized in 2002, a somewhat controversial canonization since there is no proof that he actually existed. The first record of the story of Juan Diego and the Lady of Guadalupe was written down in 1648, more than 100 years after the events it described.
In 1974, the Mexican writer Octavio Paz wrote: 'The Mexican people, after more than two centuries of experiments, have faith only in the Virgin of Guadalupe and the National Lottery.'