The Complete History of Guadalupe — A Chronology

From the hill of Tepeyac to the most visited Marian shrine in the world

Between 9 and 12 December 1531, barely ten years after the fall of Tenochtitlan, the Virgin Mary appeared four times to Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, a poor Indian, on the hill of Tepeyac, north of Mexico City. From those encounters —and from a cloak of maguey fibre on which the image of the Lady was imprinted— was born the greatest miracle of the Americas and a devotion that has shaped the history of an entire continent.

Key facts

Chronology of the apparitions (1531)

The tilma: a cloth that was not meant to last

The image was imprinted on an ayate of maguey fibre, a humble cloth whose normal useful life is estimated at a few decades. And yet the tilma —about 1.7 metres tall— has been preserved for almost five centuries, exposed for generations without protection to the smoke of candles, the touch of the faithful and the humidity of the old lake. In the early years it hung in the primitive hermitage; today it presides over the modern basilica, before which millions of pilgrims pass every year.

The Nican Mopohua

The classic account of the apparitions is the Nican Mopohua («Here it is told»), written in the Nahuatl language with extraordinary literary delicacy and traditionally attributed to the Indian scholar Antonio Valeriano (16th century); it was published in 1649 by Luis Lasso de la Vega. From it come the dialogues between the Virgin and Juan Diego quoted on this page, a jewel of the Marian literature of the world.

Recognition by the Church

Guadalupan devotion grew without pause from the 16th century onwards, and the Church confirmed it solemnly: in 1737, after the great epidemic, Our Lady of Guadalupe was sworn patroness of Mexico City and then of all New Spain; in 1754 Pope Benedict XIV approved the patronage and granted a proper Mass and Office for 12 December —to him is attributed the exclamation from the psalm: «Non fecit taliter omni nationi,» «He has not done the like for any other nation»—; the image was canonically crowned on 12 October 1895; Saint Pius X declared her patroness of Latin America in 1910, and Pius XII called her «Empress of the Americas» in 1945.

Juan Diego was beatified in 1990 and canonised on 31 July 2002 by Saint John Paul II in the basilica of Guadalupe itself: the first indigenous saint of the Americas. His feast is kept on 9 December.

The shrine and the devotion

On Tepeyac, hermitages and ever greater churches followed one another: the 16th-century church, the great baroque shrine consecrated in 1709 (today’s Old Basilica) and, since 1976, the new Basilica of Saint Mary of Guadalupe, circular in plan, where the tilma is venerated raised above the altar. The Tepeyac complex is today the most visited Marian shrine in the world: every 12 December, millions of pilgrims arrive on foot, singing the mañanitas, carrying images on their backs, and all year round there flows a constant river of faithful from the whole continent.

Guadalupe and the Rosary

Guadalupan devotion and the Rosary have walked together from the beginning: pilgrimages to Tepeyac are prayed rosary in hand, and the dialogues of the Nican Mopohua —the tenderness of the Mother, her shadow and her lap— are inexhaustible matter for Marian meditation. On this site you can pray the Rosary of Our Lady of Guadalupe with meditations from the Nican Mopohua.

Stories that surprise

The bomb of 1921

On 14 November 1921, at the height of the religious persecution, a man placed before the altar a bouquet of flowers concealing a dynamite bomb. The explosion shattered the altar steps, the candlesticks and the windows of much of the church, and bent a brass crucifix that is shown to pilgrims to this day as a witness. The tilma, a few metres away, remained intact; not even the glass protecting it was cracked.

The bishop who asked for a sign

Fray Juan de Zumárraga, a prudent Franciscan, went down in history for not believing at first. His demand for proof —so very human— is an essential part of the story: thanks to it there exist the roses of December and the image on the tilma. Tradition tells that, on seeing the image, he begged forgiveness on his knees for his unbelief and took the tilma to his oratory before moving it to Tepeyac.