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Our Queen and Mother of Hope   Protectress of the Unborn

at St. Anne Catholic Church  October 14, 2009

We were honored to be present and to have our 4th Degree Color Guard escort in procession and stand in protective vigil for the missionary image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, as the faithful came to view, venerate, and commemorate her appearance to Saint Juan Diego, an Aztec Indian, in Mexico on December 9th, 10th and 12th in the year 1531.

She left a Miraculous image of her appearance on his cactus fiber cloak (tilma), which still exists today for all to see in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City.

Preparing Our Lady for procession in to St. Anne’s.

The Aztecs practiced human sacrifice as an offering to their false gods. Hernando Cortex and the Spanish conquered and evangelized them.

After the conquest, the Spanish rule of the natives was so severe that a bloddy revolt was imminent.  Bishop Zumarraga, prayed for Our Lady to intervene to prevent an uprising, to reconcile the Spanish and the natives and to bring peace.

On December 9, 1531, Our Lady appeared to Saint Juan Diego who was a recently converted Aztec.  She asked him to go to the Bishop and request him to build a church for her on the barren hill of Tepeyac which is now part of Mexico City.  Our Lady wanted to manifest her Son and show her merciful love to all of her children. The prudent Bishop asked Juan to ask the Lady for a sign. Juan did so and Our Lady promised to give him the sign.

On December 12, Our Lady again appeared to Juan on Tepeyac Hill and told him to pick the Castillian roses which miraculously appeared there and bring them to the Bishop as the sign for him to believe her request. Juan gathered the roses into his tilma and brought them to the Bishop.

The procession begins

He opened the tilma to show them and, to everyone’s astonishment, the Image of Our Lady appeared on it.  The Bishop then build the church as Our Lady had requested and eight million natives were converted and baptized to the one true faith within the next seven years. Human sacrifice ended in Mexico forever. Our Lady of Guadalupe brought the light of the true faith and established an era of peace.

It has been scientifically established that the Miraculous Image is not a painting. There is no undersizing or pigment in the tilma.  It should have rotted after 20 years but it has not decayed after 460 years.  In 1921 the tilma survived unscathed from a bomb blast set off directly underneath it by Mexican anti-Catholics.

A digital enhancement of the eyes of the Image show the faces of Juan Diego and Bishop Zumarraga miraculously reflected in the eyes of Our Lady!  The distortion and place of the optical reflection in the eyes of Our Lady were identical with what is produced in a human eye.  Five eye doctors who examined Our Lady’s eye said that they looked into a human eye.

Pope Pius XII said that the Miraculous Image was left by “brushes which were not of this earth” and “we are certain that as long as Our Lady of Guadalupe is recognized as their Queen and Mother, America and Mexico are safe.”

Pope John Paul II named Our Lady of Guadalupe as Queen and Mother of America and established December 12 as her Feast Day throughout America. He prayed at her Basilica, “Holy Virgin of Guadalupe, Queen of Peace, save the nations and peoples of this continent!”

Our Lady’s Image makes its way to the altar

Mr. Dan Lynch, Guardian of Our Lady’s Image, spoke with devotion of the many miracles associated with Her journey through America, and the impact she has made along the way.

Pope John Paul II proclaimed Our Lady of Guadalupe as the “Mother of All America.”

The Holy Father said “May the Continent of Hope also be the Continent of Life! This is our cry: life with dignity for all! The time has come to banish once and for all from the Continent every attack against life.  Holy Virgin of Guadalupe, Queen of Peace, save the nations and peoples of this Continent!”