HOME

Intercessor for a culture of life, racial justice, lay apostolate, evangelization and family stability.

“He was an Indian who lived an honest and secluded life, and who was a very good Christian, fearful of God and his conscience, a man of very good habits and behavior.” Marcos Pacheco, Elder of the village of Cuautitlan, Juan Diego’s birthplace, in Canonical Process 1666.

Juan Diego was born in 1474, eighteen years before Columbus discovered America. He was born in the village of Cuautitlan, (Place of the Eagle) Mexico, located fourteen miles north of Tenochtitlan, now Mexico City. He was a Chichimeca of the Family of Texcoco. His Indian name was Cuauhtlatoatzin that means “He who speaks like an eagle”.

Juan received an early education according to the pre-Hispanic traditions, including the knowledge of “the one true God for whom one lives.” Later he married his wife, Malintzin, and they had children. He was a landowner, a small farmer and was involved in textile manufacturing. He had a good deal of property, some he inherited, and the rest came from his mat making business. He made mats from the reeds growing along the shores of Lake Texcoco. In the past he was thought to be poor, but in recent years, historians agree that his was a voluntary poverty that he freely embraced.

Juan lived in Mexico before and after the Spanish Conquest of 1521 and before the establishment of Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English colony, in 1607. The Conquest was an apocalyptic event for the indigenous peoples. They lost their freedom, their land, their religion, their culture, their society and their great city of Tenochtitlan. Juan’s life bridged two cultures from the pre-Conquest worship of false gods and the human sacrifices made to appease them to the post-Conquest worship of the One True God and the end of human sacrifice.

Before the Conquest, the Aztec natives practiced human sacrifice. In 1487, when Juan was just thirteen years old, he may have witnessed the horrible human sacrifices of Tlacaellel, the 89-year old Aztec leader of human sacrifice. He dedicated a new temple pyramid in the center of Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City). The temple was dedicated to the two chief gods of the Aztec pantheon, Huitzilopochtli, called the "Lover of Hearts and Drinker of Blood," and Tezcatlipoca, “the god of Hell and Darkness”. More than 80,000 men were sacrificed over a period of four days and four nights in a horrific satanic ritual with the copious flow of blood and piles of dead bodies.

Juan’s tribal family of the Chicamecas were part of the Triple Alliance with the Aztecs (Mexicas) and the Tlacopans. However, the Aztec Emperor, Montezuma, assumed total control over these tribes and made enmities of them. They later allied with the Spanish in the Conquest.

In 1520, the Spanish Conquistador, Hernan Cortes, stripped the temple pyramid of its two idols, cleansed the stone of its blood and erected a new altar. Cortes, his soldiers, and Father Olmedo then ascended the stairs with the Holy Cross and images of the Blessed Mother and St. Christopher. Upon this new altar, Father Olmedo offered the Sacrifice of the Mass. Upon what had been the place of evil pagan sacrifice, now the unbloody, eternal and true sacrifice of our Lord was offered. This caused a total war with the Aztecs.

     Cortes warned Montezuma, "I ask you not to sacrifice any more souls to your gods, who are deceiving you. I beg you to allow us to remove them and put up Our Lady and a cross." Montezuma was not moved. He answered Cortes' warning and said, "How sorry I am about the answer we have had from our gods; it is that we are to make war on you and kill you." The resulting war ended in the annihilation of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan.

     After the Conquest, Juan converted to Christianity between 1524-25 and was baptized, together with his wife by the Franciscan missionary, Fray Toribio de Benavente whom the Indians called “Motolinia” or “the poor one”. He was baptized as Juan Diego (John) and she was baptized as Maria Lucia (Mary). In 1524 they celebrated the sacrament of Matrimony. Shortly later, they heard a sermon regarding how the virtue of chastity is pleasing to God. By mutual consent they decided to live their marriage thereafter as celibates, until Maria Lucia’s death in 1529. After that, Juan lived with his uncle, Juan Bernardino, in the village of Tolpetlac, located nine miles from Tlaltelolco where they attended Mass.

     Ten years later, many of the natives still practiced human sacrifice. Many of them also lived under the oppression of Nuno de Guzman, the Spanish governor. He sold thousands of them into slavery in the West Indies, enslaved thousands of poor Indians in Mexico and extorted from the wealthier ones. King Charles V of Spain named Bishop Zumarraga as “Protector of the Indians”. He tried to protect them but his efforts and those of the Spanish Franciscans were not very successful. Neither the Spanish civil rulers nor the natives were disposed to conversion. Bishop Zumarraga probably prayed for the end of human sacrifice, conversion, and reconciliation and peace between the races.

Ten years after the Conquest on Saturday, December 9, 1531, 57-year-old Juan, a recent widower, began his nine-mile walk from his home in Tolpetlac probably to Tlaltelolco near Mexico City “in pursuit of God and His commandments”, according to the Nican Mopohua, the earliest account of the apparitions written in 1545. Juan was walking to attend Mass and catechetical instructions.

As he walked near Tepeyac Hill, the former site of worship to the Aztec goddess Tonantzin, he heard the music of singing birds. He stopped to look and said to himself, Am I worthy and deserving of what I am hearing? Where am I? Am I perhaps in the earthly paradise? He was looking towards the crown of the hill to where the music came from where the sun rises. Suddenly, the music stopped and there was complete silence.

Then, from the top of the hill, he heard a sweet feminine voice affectionately call him by name, “Juan, dearest Juan Diego.” He quickly climbed to the top of the hill to see who was there. He saw a beautiful young lady. Her dress shone like the sun and transformed the appearance of the rocks and plants on the barren cactus hill into glittering jewels. The ground glistened like the rays of a rainbow in a dense fog.

She identified herself to him as “the perfect and perpetual Virgin Mary, Mother of the one true God for whom one lives . . . .” She entrusted a mission to him to request Bishop Zumarraga to build a church on the hill so that she could manifest her Son to all of the people. She said, “I ardently desire that a little sacred house be built here for me where I will manifest Him, I will exalt Him, I will give Him to the people through my personal love, through my compassionate gaze, through my help and through my protection. Because I am, in truth, your merciful Mother and the mother of all who live united in this land and of all mankind, of all those who love me, of those who cry to me, of those who have confidence in me. Here I will hear their weeping and their sadness and will remedy and alleviate their troubles, their miseries and their suffering.”

Juan dutifully went to the Bishop and delivered the Virgin Mother’s message and request. The Bishop prudently asked Juan to return another time. So he returned to the Virgin Mother at Tepeyac and told her the Bishop’s response. Juan told her that he was not worthy of her mission to the Bishop and that she should find someone else. He said that he was a nobody. But she reassured him. She told him that she had many messengers who could carry her message but that it was “altogether necessary that you should be the one to undertake this mission and it will be through your mediation and assistance that my wish should be accomplished.” She commanded him to return to the Bishop the next day.

So the next day he returned to the Bishop and tearfully begged him to respond to the Virgin Mother’s message and request. The Bishop prudently requested a sign from the Virgin Mother so that he could believe her request for him to build the church. Once again, Juan returned to her and gave the Bishop’s answer.

The Virgin Mother promised to give him the sign on the next day, December 11. However, when Juan got home he found that Juan Bernardino, his uncle with whom he lived, was dying from a disease. So he stayed home the next day and took care of him instead of going to receive the sign from the Virgin.

On the day after that, December 12, he left his home and his uncle to get a priest to give him the last rites. As he approached Tepeyac Hill, he decided to go around it another way so that Our Lady would not see him and detain him from getting the priest for his uncle. But she spotted him, intercepted him and asked him what path he was taking.

Juan must have felt bewildered, frightened and ashamed since he failed to meet her on December 11. He told her that he was on the way to get a priest for his dying uncle but that he would go to the Bishop with her message as soon as he was finished. After listening to his excuses, she told him not to worry and said that his uncle was cured at that very moment.

She said, “Listen and let it penetrate your heart, my dear little son. Do not be troubled or weighed down with grief. Do not fear any illness or vexation, anxiety, or pain. Am I not here who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not your fountain of life? Are you not in the folds of my mantle? Are you not in the crossing of my arms? What else do you need? Do not let the illness of your uncle worry you because he is not going to die of his sickness. At this very moment, he is cured.”

Juan was greatly relieved and consoled. The Virgin Mother then asked him to go up to the top of the hill, cut and gather the flowers there and bring them back to her. This must have sounded strange to him since it was a barren desert hilltop in the middle of winter when no flowers grow. But he obediently climbed the hill and to his astonishment he found miraculous flowers in bloom. They included Castilian roses that were native to the Bishop’s homeland in Castile, Spain.

Juan was wearing a tilma, a poncho-like cloak, woven form the native maguey cactus plant. He gathered the flowers, placed them in his tilma and returned to the Virgin Mother. He was about to go off to the Bishop but he hadn’t done a good job of arranging the flowers in his tilma. The Virgin Mother helped him to place the flowers as a beautiful bouquet in his tilma. Then she said that the flowers were “the sign to take to the Bishop. Tell him, in my name, that in them he will recognize my will and that he must fulfill it. You will be my ambassador, fully worthy of my confidence.”

For the third time, Juan walked to the Bishop but this time his heart must have been filled with joy because he had a sign for the Bishop by which the Virgin Mother assured him he would recognize her will. He must have been confident that the Bishop would finally believe him. He endured the derision of the Bishop’s servants and waited patiently to see him. Again, he delivered to him the Virgin Mother’s request for him to build the church and told him that she had given him flowers as a sign. As he opened his tilma, he said, “Here are the flowers.” The roses fell to the ground and the Bishop fell to his knees and stared at Juan’s tilma. Juan was perplexed and followed the Bishop’s eyes to his tilma. There he saw the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe miraculously appear on it. Now the Bishop believed him and with tears in his eyes he asked pardon for his disbelief. He approached Juan, removed his tilma and immediately placed it in his chapel.

The next day they went to Tepeyac and Juan showed the Bishop where the Virgin Mother wanted the church to be built. Then he went home to see his uncle, Juan Bernardino, and found him in perfect health. Juan Bernardino said that the Virgin Mother had appeared to him and told him that she wished to be known as, “The Perfect Virgin, Holy Mary of Guadalupe”.

Two weeks later, the church that the Virgin had requested was built. Then the miraculous image was transported from the Bishop’s chapel to the new church in a great procession so that all the people could admire and venerate it. In the procession were the Bishop, all the priests, Spaniards and natives. Everyone processed in great jubilation. A native archer shot an arrow inadvertently and it struck another native in the throat and killed him. The faith-filled people laid his body before the miraculous image and prayed that Our Lady would intercede to bring him back to life. They extracted the arrow and not only did he regain his life, but the wound was completely healed. Everyone was very moved at the sight and they praised Our Lady of Guadalupe who fulfilled her promise to help the natives and all who call upon her with confidence.

Our Lady was also true to her promise to manifest her Son to the people. Nine million natives converted to Catholicism in the next nine years. The Miraculous Image was displayed in the church at the base of Tepeyac Hill. Later, Juan built a one-room hermitage addition onto the east wall of the church. He was the caretaker of this church and the Miraculous Image. Here he spent his days sweeping the church, praying and telling and re-telling the story of Our Lady’s apparitions and messages. He lived there as a poor widower hermit for the last seventeen years of his life. He practiced penance, mortification, prayed, received frequent communion and carried out the simple tasks of caring for his little hermitage. He lived a life of poverty, chastity and obedience and was revered by all.

Since Juan was learned in the Nahuatl language and Christian doctrine, he was able to explain the Miraculous Image on the tilma that spoke to the natives as a pictograph. He explained its significance and the story of the apparitions and messages over and over again. He was Our Lady’s messenger, “The Talking Eagle”, until the day he died.

Juan died at the age of 74 in 1548 almost a century before the Mayflower landed at Plymouth Rock. He was probably buried in his hermitage next to the church that he had cared for so well. His tilma is still displayed today in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe near Tepeyac Hill.

In the Canonical Process of 1666, Marcos Pacheco, Elder of the village of Cuautitlan, Juan Diego’s birthplace, said, “He was an Indian who lived an honest and secluded life, and who was a very good Christian, fearful of God and his conscience, a man of very good habits and behavior.”

During Juan’s beatification ceremony, Pope John Paul II described Juan as an authentic apostle to his people. He said, “In the likeness of the ancient biblical figures, which were a collective representation of all their people, we could say that Juan Diego represents all the indigenous peoples who accepted the Gospel of Jesus, thanks to the maternal aid of Mary we can invoke him as the protector and the advocate of the indigenous peoples.”

The Holy Father further remarked on this point during his homily at Juan’s canonization Mass. He said, “‘The Guadalupe Event’, as the Mexican Episcopate has pointed out, ‘meant the beginning of evangelization with a vitality that surpassed all expectations. Christ's message, through his Mother, took up the central elements of the indigenous culture, purified them and gave them the definitive sense of salvation’. Consequently Guadalupe and Juan Diego have a deep ecclesial and missionary meaning and are a model of perfectly inculturated evangelization.”

Juan Diego is a saint not because Our Lady appeared to him, but because he exercised heroic virtues. In his beatification address, Pope John Paul II praised Juan’s virtues, “his simple faith, nourished by catechesis and open to the mysteries; his hope and trust in God and in the Virgin; his love, his moral coherence, his unselfishness and evangelical poverty.

"Living the life of a hermit here near Tepeyac, he was a model of humility. The Virgin chose him from among the most humble as the one to receive that loving and gracious manifestation of hers which is the Guadalupe apparition. Her maternal face and her blessed image which she left us as a priceless gift is a permanent remembrance of this. In this manner she wanted to remain among you as a sign of the communion and unity of all those who were to live together in this land. . . .”

Juan exhibited the Marian virtues of humility, obedience, charity, trust, patience, poverty and chastity.

Like Mary, who saw herself as the lowly handmaid of the Lord, Juan saw himself as a nobody. Like Mary, who obeyed and accepted to be a mother to carry Christ, Juan obeyed and accepted to be carrier of the message of Mary. Like Mary, who in charity cared for her elderly pregnant cousin Elizabeth, Juan cared for his elderly dying uncle, Juan Bernardino. Like Mary, who “trusted that the Lord’s promise to her would be fulfilled” (Lk. 1:45), Juan trusted Our Lady’s promise that the Bishop would recognize her will and fulfill it through the sign of the roses. Like Mary, who patiently waited for nine months for the Lord’s promise to be fulfilled, Juan patiently waited for days for Our Lady’s promise to be fulfilled. Like Mary, who lived in poverty and chastity as a widow, Juan, the widower, gave up his possessions and lived in poverty and chastity until his death. Finally, like Mary, Juan didn’t argue with God’s will, he didn’t complain and he didn’t doubt. He simply did as he was asked, endured the derision of the Bishop’s servants and persevered in fortitude, as did Mary who endured the derision of her detractors who accused her of adultery.

At Juan’s canonization Mass, Pope John Paul II said, “With deep joy I have come on pilgrimage to this Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Marian heart of Mexico and of America, to proclaim the holiness of Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, the simple, humble Indian who contemplated the sweet and serene face of Our Lady of Tepeyac, . . . . Blessed Juan Diego, a good, Christian Indian, whom simple people have always considered a saint! …

“In this new saint you have a marvelous example of a just and upright man, a loyal son of the Church, docile to his Pastors, who deeply loved the Virgin and was a faithful disciple of Jesus.”

Before his final blessing, the Holy Father said, “You have now in your new saint a remarkable example of holiness. . . . May he be a model for you and others that you may also be holy.”

Fruits

Juan’s mission resulted in the largest mass evangelization in the history of the world. Nine million indigenous peoples of Mexico were converted to the one true God in nine years, the practice of human sacrifice ended in Mexico and the indigenous peoples were reconciled to their Spanish conquerors, intermarried with them and formed the new Mexican race.

During his homily at Juan’s canonization Mass, Pope John Paul II remarked on the formation of the Mexican people and said, “In accepting the Christian message without forgoing his indigenous identity, Juan Diego discovered the profound truth of the new humanity, in which all are called to be children of God. Thus he facilitated the fruitful meeting of two worlds and became the catalyst for the new Mexican identity, closely united to Our Lady of Guadalupe, whose mestizo face expresses her spiritual motherhood that embraces all Mexicans.”

An apostle is one who is sent to a nation as a messenger for God. Juan Diego was a layman who was the apostle to Mexico and as such is the Model for the Lay Apostolate. He was sent by the Queen of Apostles as a messenger to manifest her Son to the people.

Juan was a model lay apostle who foreshadowed those described in The Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity of the Second Vatican Council. Juan may become known as one of the great saints in the history of the Church. He should be recognized as something of a Patriarch, like Abraham or Moses. He didn’t lead thousands to the Promised Land but he led millions to the Promised One through the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Pope John Paul II said at his beatification ceremony, “Similar to ancient Biblical personages who were collective representations of all the people, we could say that Juan Diego represents all the indigenous peoples who accepted the Gospel of Jesus, thanks to the maternal aid of Mary, who is always inseparable from the manifestation of her Son and the spread of the Church, as was her presence among the Apostles on the day of Pentecost.

"The recognition of the veneration that has been given for centuries to the layman, Juan Diego, assumes a particular importance. It is a strong call to all the lay faithful of the nation to assume all their responsibilities in the transmission of the Gospel Message and in the witness of a living and operative faith. . . .

       “The lay faithful share in the prophetic, priestly and royal role of Christ (cf. Documents of Vatican II, Lumen Gentium, No. 31), but they carry out this vocation in the ordinary situations of daily life. Their natural and immediate field of action extends to all the areas of human coexistence and to everything that constitutes culture in the widest and fullest sense of the term.”

       Juan Diego is the model for the lay apostolate and like him all of the lay faithful are called to imbue every area of social life with the spirit of the Gospel and to be witnesses in words and deeds of his virtues of humility, obedience, charity, trust and patience in our own time and place.

      "The mission of the Church pertains to the salvation of men, which is to be achieved by belief in Christ and by His grace. The apostolate of the Church and of all its members is primarily designed to manifest Christ's message by words and deeds and to communicate His grace to the world.” (Documents of Vatican II, Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity ch. 2, No. 6). The Queen of the Apostles, Our Lady of Guadalupe, and her apostle Juan Diego carried out this mission to the greatest degree known in the history of the world.

“Whether the lay apostolate is exercised by the faithful as individuals or as members of organizations, it should be incorporated into the apostolate of the whole Church according to a right system of relationships. Indeed, union with those whom the Holy Spirit has assigned to rule His Church (cf. Acts 20.28) is an essential element of the Christian apostolate.” (Documents of Vatican II, Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity ch. 5, No. 23).

Juan Diego received the mission from Our Lady of Guadalupe who called him and sent to the Bishop . He was chosen as an individual but he exercised his role in union with the whole Church through his Bishop just as the Council requested over 400 years later. The experience of Juan Diego shows that the inspirational grace for a great work may first come to a layperson who then cooperates with the hierarchy. Because he did so, he is truly worthy to be “The Model for the Lay Apostolate”.

     On May 6, 1990, at the very moment the Holy Father was proclaiming Juan Diego Blessed, Juan José Barragán Silva, a drug addict in his twenties stabbed himself with a knife at home in Mexico City in his mother's presence and went to a balcony to jump from the window.

      His mother, Esperanza, tried to hold him by the legs, but he freed himself and plunged thirty feet head-first to the ground. He then was rushed to the intensive care unit of Durango Hospital in Mexico City.

      Esperanza said that when her son was falling she entrusted him to God and Our Lady of Guadalupe. She invoked Juan Diego and implored, “Give me a proof . . . save this son of mine! And you, my Mother, listen to Juan Diego.”

Suddenly and inexplicably, three days after the fall, her son was completely cured. Subsequent examinations confirmed that he had no neurological or psychic effects, and the doctors concluded that his cure was “scientifically inexplicable”.

Medical experts said the youth should have died in the fall, or at least been left seriously handicapped. J.H. Hernández Illescas, regarded internationally as one of the best specialists in the field of neurology, and two other specialists, described the case as “unheard of, amazing, and inconceivable”. .” Juan is an intercessor for all families broken by sin.

This miracle was the decisive factor in the recognition of Juan Diego's sainthood. Our Lady promised Juan that she would reward him for his efforts on her behalf. She told him, “Yes, I will enrich you, I will glorify you.” Her promise is now fulfilled. Pope John Paul II canonized Juan on July 31, 2002 in Mexico City. His Feast Day is December 9, the date of Our Lady’s first apparition to him.

Lord God, through Saint Juan Diego you made known the love of Our Lady of Guadalupe toward your people. Grant by his intercession that we who follow the counsel of Mary, our Mother, may strive continually to do your will. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

To make an online gift to us by credit card, click here, http://www.jkmi.com/donations.htm or make your check or money order payable to Missionary Image or Jesus King and send to:

The Missionary Image or Jesus King of All Nations 144 Sheldon Road, St. Albans, VT 05478 Phone: 802-524-5350 Fax: 802-524-5673 E-Mail: jkmi@jkmi.com Your gift is tax deductible. Thank you for your generosity!

The Dark Virgin: Donald Demarest and Coley Taylor. (Coley Taylor, Inc., Porter’s Landing, Freeport, Maine, 1956).

A Handbook on Guadalupe: Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate (Park Press,
Inc., Waite Park, Minnesota, 1997).