When Juan Diego opened his tilma the roses spilled out and an image of the Lady of Guadalupe appeared on the cloth. So while historical records point to a date around , the story supported by the church points to an earlier date between and Interestingly, the story itself didn't appear in print until in a book by a priest named Miguel Sanchez.
When asked why this was the first time anyone had heard of this story, he said that people had simply forgotten the story. While the date of the first chapel is still disputed, the other buildings at Plaza Mariana are much less of a mystery. Some time after the first chapel's construction it was replaced by another chapel that is today called the Ex-Parroquia de Indios. Inside of this chapel you can see the foundation of the original chapel. Construction was completed in and was the first to house the tilma with the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
The church reached its peak in when it was given the status of Basilica. In , a bomb inside of a flower pot exploded damaging the building interior but the tilma was not damaged. As the years went on the foundation of the Basilica began to sink into the ground. Rather than demolishing the Basilica, it was restored and a new Basilica built next door to replace it. For full functionality please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.
Such practices were considered by the Christians to be devil worship. This policy of labeling pagan religious practices as demonic already had a more than thousand year history in Christian Europe.
Passing the pagan sacred hill of Tepeyac, he heard a voice calling to him. Climbing the hill, he saw on the summit a young woman who seemed to be no more than fourteen years old, standing in a golden mist. Revealing herself as the "ever-virgin Holy Mary, Mother of God" so the Christian telling of the story goes , she told Juan Diego to go to the local bishop and tell him that she wished a church to be built on the hill.
Juan did as he was instructed, but the bishop did not believe him. On his way home, Juan climbed the sacred hill and again saw the apparition, who told him to return to the bishop the next day.
This time the bishop listened more attentively to Juan's message from Mary. He was still skeptical, however, and so asked for a sign from Mary. Two days later Juan again went to Tepeyac hill and, meeting Mary, was told by her to climb the hill to the site of their first encounter, pick a bunch of roses that would be growing there, and return with the roses to Mary.
Juan climbed the hill with misgivings. It was the dead of winter, and no roses could possibly be growing on the cold and frosty hill. But upon reaching the summit Juan found a profusion of roses, an armful of which he gathered and wrapped in his shawl to carry to Mary.
Arranging the roses, Mary instructed Juan to take the shawl-encased bundle to the bishop, for this would be her sign. When the bishop unrolled the shawl, the presence of the roses was astounding. But truly miraculous was the image that had mysteriously appeared on the inside of Juan Diego's shawl. The image showed a young woman without child, her head lowered demurely. Wearing an open crown and flowing gown, she stood upon a half moon.
Soon thereafter the bishop began construction of the church. News of the miraculous apparition of the Virgin's image on a peasant's shawl spread rapidly throughout Mexico. Indians by the thousands, learning that the mother of the Christian God had appeared to one of their own kind and spoken to him in his native language, came from hundreds of miles away to see the image, now hanging above the altar in the new church. The miraculous image was to have a powerful influence on the advancement of the Church's mission in Mexico.
In only seven years, from to , more than eight million Indians were converted to Christianity. The shrine, rebuilt several times over the centuries, is today a great basilica that has space for 10, pilgrims.
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