The Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to a Mexican farmer, Juan Diego, on the 9th of December 1531 at a place called the Hill of Tepeyac, which would become part of Villa de Guadalupe, a suburb of Mexico City. Speaking in his native language, she identified herself as the Mother of God and asked for a church in her honour to be built there. In subsequent apparitions she confirmed her identity and by her intercession his uncle Juan Bernardino, near death, recovered his health. She asked Juan Diego to collect flowers from the top of the hill, which was usually barren, particularly in December. Juan found Castilian roses, not native to Mexico, flowering there. He arranged flowers in his tilma (cloak) and when opened his cloak before Archbishop Zumárraga on December 12, the flowers fell to the floor, and on the fabric was the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Juan Diego was canonised by Saint John Paul II in 2002 under the name Saint Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin.
Dom Prosper Guéranger:
Let us contemplate the sentiments of profound respect and maternal tenderness which fill the soul of our Blessed Lady now that she has conceived Jesus in her chaste womb: he is her God, and yet he is her Son. Let us think upon this wonderful dignity bestowed on a creature, and let us honour the Mother of our God. It was by this mystery that was fulfilled the prophecy of Isaias: “Behold, a Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son” (Isaias vii. 14) and that of Jeremias: “The Lord has created a new thing upon the Earth: a woman shall compass a man” (Jeremias xxxi. 22). The Gentiles themselves had received the tradition of these prophecies.
Thus in the old pagan Carnutum (Chartres), there was an altar dedicated “To the Virgin that was to bring forth a Son” (Virgini Parituroae), and while modern rationalism with its ignorant scepticism was affecting to throw a doubt on this fact of history, the researches of science were discovering that Carnutum was far from being the only city of the West which had such an altar. But what human language could express the dignity of our Lady that carries within her chaste womb Him that is the world’s salvation! If Moses, after a mere colloquy with God, returned to the Israelites with the rays of the majesty of Jehovah encircling his head — what an aureola of glory was due to Mary who has within her, as in a living Heaven, that very God Himself ! The Divine Wisdom tempers the effulgence of her glory that it be not visible to men, and this in order that the state of humility, which the Son of God has chosen as the one in which He would manifest Himself to the world, should not be removed at the very onset by the dazzling glory which would otherwise have been seen gleaming from His Mother.
The sentiments which filled the Heart of Mary during these months of her ineffable union with the Divine Word may be thus expressed in the words of the Spouse in the sacred Canticle: “I sat under the shadow of him whom I desired, and his fruit was sweet to my palate. I sleep, but my heart watches. My soul melted when he spoke. I to my Beloved and my Beloved to me, who feeds among the Lilies, till the day break, and the shadows retire” (Canticles ii. 3, 16, 17; v. 2, 6). And if there ever were a human heart that was forced by the overpowering vehemence of its love of God to use these other words of the same Canticle, it was Mary’s: “Daughters of Jerusalem, stay me up with flowers, compass me about with fragrant fruits, for I languish with love” (Canticles ii. 5). These sweet “words,” says the venerable Peter of Celles, “are those of the Spouse that dwells in the gardens and is now near the time of her delivery. What so lovely in creation as this Virgin, who loves the Lord with such matchless love and is so exceedingly loved by this her Lord? It is She of whom the Scripture speaks when it calls the Spouse the dearest hind. What, too, so lovely as that well-beloved Son of God, born of His beloved Father from all eternity, and now, at the end of time, as the Apostle speaks, formed in the womb of His dearest Mother and become to her in the words of the same divine proverb, the sweetest fawn? Let us therefore cull our flowers and offer them to both Child and Mother. But let me briefly tell you what are the flowers you must offer to our Lady. Christ says, speaking of his humanity, I am the flower of the field, and the lily of the valleys. By him, therefore, let us purify our souls and bodies, and so be able to approach our God in chastity. Next, preserve this flower of purity from all that would injure it, for flowers are tender things and soon droop and fade. Let us wash our hands among the innocent and, with a pure heart, and pure body, and cleansed lips, and chaste soul, let us gather, in the paradise of our heavenly Father, our fresh flowers for the new Nativity of our New King. With these flowers let us stay up this most saintly Mother, this Virgin of Virgins, this Queen of Queens, this Lady of Ladies that so we may deserve to receive the blessing of the Mother and the Divine Babe.”On this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:
At Rome, the holy martyr Synesius, who was ordained lector in the time of the blessed Pope Sixtus. Having converted many to Christ, he was accused before the emperor Aurelian, and being put to the sword received the crown of martyrdom.
At Alexandria, in the time of Decius, the holy martyrs Epimachus and Alexander, who were kept in chains a long time, and subjected to various torments. But as they persevered in the faith, they were finally consumed by fire.
In the same place, the holy women Ammonaria, virgin, Mercuria, Dionysia and another Ammonaria. The first named, after having triumphed over unheard-of torments, in the same persecution of Decius, ended her blessed life by the sword. As to the three others, the judge being ashamed to be overcome by women, and fearing that by resorting to tortures, he would be vanquished by their constancy, he ordered them to be beheaded immediately.
The same day, the holy martyrs Hermogenes, Donatus and twenty-two others.
At Treves, the holy martyrs Maxentius, Constantius, Crescentius, Justinus and their companions, who suffered in the persecution of Diocletian under the governor Rictiovarus.
And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors and virgins.
Thanks be to God.
