Saint Juan Diego

Visionary of Guadalupe
(1474–1548)

Saint Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin was born in 1474 in Cuauhtitlán, in what is now Mexico, a member of the Chichimec people who were part of the Aztec civilisation. He was baptised around 1524, following the Spanish conquest of Mexico and the arrival of Franciscan missionaries, and embraced the Catholic faith with great fervour. He and his wife Maria Lucia were among the first indigenous converts to adopt the Christian faith wholeheartedly, walking many miles each week to attend Mass and receive instruction.

The event for which he is venerated occurred in December 1531, ten years after the Spanish conquest. On the morning of December 9, while walking past the hill of Tepeyac near Mexico City, Juan Diego heard beautiful music and saw a radiant woman who identified herself as the Virgin Mary, the Mother of the true God. She asked him to go to the Bishop of Mexico City, Juan de Zumárraga, and request that a church be built on the hill of Tepeyac. Juan Diego presented himself to the bishop, who received him kindly but asked for a sign before he would act.

On December 12 the Virgin appeared to Juan Diego again and told him to gather the roses blooming on the rocky hilltop, where no roses had ever grown before, and bring them to the bishop. He gathered them in his tilma, his cloak of woven cactus fibre, and when he opened the cloak before the bishop the roses tumbled to the floor and on the fabric appeared the miraculous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which remains to this day the most important religious image in the Americas, venerated by tens of millions of pilgrims each year at the Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City.

Juan Diego spent the remaining seventeen years of his life as a hermit near the shrine, caring for the chapel built at Our Lady's request. He died on May 30, 1548. He was canonised by Pope John Paul II in 2002. His feast is celebrated on December 9th.