Our Lady of Guadalupe

Also referred to as the Virgin of Guadalupe, this is an icon of Virgin Mary that is highly celebrated in the Roman Catholic Church.

There are two accounts, which originate back in the 1640s that explain how Juan Diego, a peasant in a Mexico village saw a girl of around seventeen or eighteen surrounded by heavenly light spoke to  him requesting him to get a church built in the spot that they encountered, the church was to be an honor for her.

That happened quite long ago, on 9th December 1531. Juan could not get it hard to figure out that this was Virgin Mary from her words; he then went out report it to the archbishop who told him to return to the spot (Tepeyac Hill) and ask her for proves that she indeed was the holy one.

Requesting petitions for the following:

• Sickness.
• Luck for the month.
• Help in most situations.
• Feast: 12-Dec
• Day: First of the month
• Candle/ Emblem: White, Pink, or three colors: Green, white, and red.
• Matters concerning:  Sickness, help, luck for the month, and peace. She is patroness of the Americas and Mexico

On arriving there, she asked him to pick flowers from the top of the hill, this astonished him in that this was not the season for planting flowers in Mexico, but he just climbed the hill to pick the flowers. There he found the unpopular Castilian roses, and brought to the virgin who then arranged them in the peasant’s cloak.

He then went to the Church and opened the cloak, the flowers fell on the floor creating a print of the Virgin on the fabric, she was then named the Virgin of Guadalupe.

The icon is nowadays being displayed in one of the most popular Marian shrines which have been named Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe. This is one of the popular social images in Mexico which has been named the Queen of Mexico, until the 1935 when it was renamed by Pope Pius XI it used to be called Patroness of the Philippines.

In the year 1999 it was proclaimed Virgin Mary Patroness of the Americas, Empress of Latin America, and Protectress of Unborn Children by the Pope John Paul II while exercising his powers accorded by his Marian title.

Controversy about the face

There have been disagreements on the original naming of the apparition. Based on the information from the earliest account for this apparition known as the Nican Mopohua, and written in the year 1556 in the native language there, Nahuatl , the Virgin Mary spoke to Juan’s uncle named Juan Bernadino that the image was to be named "the Perfect Virgin, Holy Mary of Guadalupe." A century later, a literary work by Luis Becerra Tanco “Felicidad de Mexico” seems to spark the idea that, due to language barriers the Spaniards gave names that resembles the original Nahuatl.

History

After successful conquer by the Spaniards between year 1519 and 1521, the original temple that was outside Mexico city got destructed and a new temple in honor of the virgin was erected in the same spot. The fresh Indian Christians came there for worship but used to call Mary  Tonantzin.

An official address of the issue in the Spanish is done in Imagen de la Virgen Maria, Madre de Dios de Guadalupe, which was written and published to convince the Spaniards into joining the cult, this was done by Miguel Sanches in 1648.