Mirabai Starr - Our Lady of Guadalupe: Devotions, Prayers & Living Wisdom

She appeared on a remote hilltop in the high desert of Latin America during the height of the Conquest. The indigenous people saw her as a manifestation of Goddess. The Catholic occupiers recognized her as the Virgin Mary. Her compassionate gaze melted the barriers between cultures and faiths, spreading a wave of healing love through a war-ravaged region. She did not come to pay her respects to the privileged and the powerful. She called on the poor and oppressed. She lifted them to their feet, and infused them with dignity and hope.

The Spanish called him Juan Diego; we no longer remember his Nahuatl name. They called her Our Lady of Guadalupe. Yet, when the Divine Mother revealed herself to the Aztec peasant we know as Juan Diego, the name she gave herself was in his native tongue. History generally adjusts the reality of the conquered people to match the vision of the conquerors.

The year was 1531. Juan Diego was climbing Tepeyac Hill on his way to attend to divine things. The European version of this encounter paints a picture of Juan Diego as a humble Indian recently converted to Christianity, who was making a pilgrimage to a chapel in Mexico City (the ancient empire of Tenochtitlan) to hear a sermon. Suddenly, the Virgin Mary appeared to him in what turned out to be the exact location of an indigenous shrine to the Goddess Tonantzin, whose name means Our Mother.

One of the first known accounts of this miracle is called Nican Mopohua. While this historical document clearly conveys the teachings of the Catholic Church, it is written in Nahuatl, the language of the Aztec people of pre-Conquest Mexico. The poetic narrative tells the story of the four apparitions of the Blessed Mother to the peasant Juan Diego.

According to the cherished legend, as he neared the crest of Tepeyac Hill, Juan Diego suddenly heard the most exquisite music flowing down from the summit. It sounded as if every species of bird were singing together in glorious harmony. A sublime radiance appeared in the sky. Juan Diego stood basking in the light and listened until the song ended. He wondered if he was in Xochitalpan, the ancestral place of perfect bliss to which his people believed they were destined to go when they were released at last from their mortal bodies.

Juan Diego was gazing upward toward the source of the celestial music when he heard a woman calling his name from the top of the hill. Suddenly, she materialized in a ball of light. She was the most beautiful girl Juan Diego had ever seen: both vibrant and poised. It looked as if she were clothed with the sun. He immediately prostrated himself at her feet. She asked him where he was going and he told her he was headed for her home.

My dear little son, I love you, she said. And I want you to know who I am. She then identified herself as the ever-Virgin Mary, Mother of the True God who gives life and maintains its existence. This God, she reminded the trembling prophet, created all things and lives in all places. He is the Lord of Heaven and Earth, she said.

Then the Lady told Juan Diego that she had chosen him to be her spokesperson. Like all prophets, he tried to talk her out of it. The Virgin Maria de Guadalupe expressed her desire that a church be built on this holy hill, a sanctuary where anyone who struggles would be able to experience her compassion. All those who sincerely ask my help in their work and in their sorrows will know my Mothers Heart in this place, she said. When she told him to run to the city and tell the bishop what he had seen and heard, Juan Diego complied, but with serious doubts that this high official would receive him.