December 9 + Saint Juan Diego

Juan Diego’s name is forever linked with Our Lady of Guadalupe because it was to him that she first appeared at Tepeyac Hill in Mexico on December 9, 1531.

Juan was an indigenous Mexican Catholic convert whose encounter with the Virgin Mary began the Church's devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe.

In 1474, 50 years before receiving the name Juan Diego at his baptism, a boy named Cuauhtlatoatzin (meaning “the talking eagle”) was born in the Anahuac Valley of present-day Mexico. Though raised according to the Aztec pagan religion and culture, he showed an unusual and mystical sense of life even before hearing the Gospel from Franciscan missionaries.

In 1524, Cuauhtlatoatzin and his wife converted and entered the Catholic Church. The farmer now known as Juan Diego was committed to his faith, often walking long distances to receive religious instruction.

On December 9, 1531 Juan was hurrying to Mass to celebrate the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. But the woman he was heading to church to celebrate, came to him instead.

In the native Aztec dialect, a radiant woman descended from the clouds and asked Juan to make a request of the local bishop. She asked him to build a Church dedicated to her son Jesus, on the site of a former pagan temple, that would “show Him” to all Mexicans and “exalt Him” throughout the world.

She was asking a great deal of a native farmer. Not surprisingly, his bold request met with skepticism from Bishop Juan de Zumárraga. But Juan said he would produce proof of the apparition, after he finished tending to his uncle whose death seemed imminent.

Making his way to church on December 12, to summon a priest for his uncle, Juan again encountered the Blessed Virgin. She promised to cure his uncle and give him a sign to display for the bishop. On the hill where they had first met, he would find roses, even though it was the dead of winter.

Doing as she asked, he found the roses and brought them back to her. The Blessed Virgin then arranged the flowers inside his tilma, a traditional cloak-like garment he had been wearing. She told him not to unwrap the tilma containing the flowers, until he had reached the bishop.

When Juan reached the bishop, he unfolded the tilma releasing all of the roses and on his tilma they found a miraculous imprint of the Blessed Virgin.

Juan Diego's imprinted cloak has remained perfectly preserved since 1531 in the Basilica in Mexico City and Juan became the first Roman Catholic indigenous saint from the Americas.