Our Lady of Guadalupe

On December 12 the Church keeps the Solemnity of Our Lady of Guadalupe — the feast of the Virgin Mary who appeared to the indigenous convert Juan Diego on the hill of Tepeyac, near Mexico City, in December 1531. The apparitions took place from December 9 to December 12; on the last day, the Virgin left her image imprinted on Juan Diego's tilma — the rough cactus-fibre cloak that still hangs above the high altar of the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and that has been the subject of centuries of scientific examination without a convincing natural explanation of its making or its preservation.

The image shows a young indigenous woman, her head bowed, her hands folded in prayer, standing on the moon and clothed with the sun — the iconography of the Woman Clothed with the Sun of Revelation 12, clothed in the symbols of Aztec religion and transformed into a sign of the Christian Gospel. The stars on her mantle correspond to the constellations of the winter solstice of 1531; the flowers on her dress are those of the Mexican highlands. Within a generation of the apparition, an estimated nine million indigenous people of Mexico accepted baptism.

The Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe at Mexico City — the old basilica, completed in 1709, and the new basilica, built in 1974-1976 to hold the millions who come — is the most visited Catholic pilgrimage site in the world. The tilma is enshrined above the high altar of the new basilica, and Juan Diego, canonized by Pope John Paul II on July 31, 2002, is buried there. Pius XII declared Our Lady of Guadalupe patroness of the Americas in 1946; John Paul II reaffirmed this in 1999, and the basilica draws an estimated 20 million pilgrims a year. In Rome, the church of Santa Maria in Traspontina on the Via della Conciliazione holds a copy of the tilma, and Pope Francis celebrated the first Mass of his pontificate at the basilica's altar on March 13, 2013.