Our Lady of Guadalupe
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Prayer of John Paul II
O Virgin of Guadalupe, Mother of the Americas, grant to our homes the grace of loving and respecting life in its beginnings, with the same love with which you conceived in your womb the life of the Son of God. Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of Fair Love, protect our families so that they may always be united
and bless the upbringing of our children.Our hope, look upon us with pity,
teach is to go continually to Jesus,
and if we fall help us to rise again and return to Him through the confession of our faults and our sins in the Sacrament of penance,
which gives peace to the soul.We beg you to grant us a great love
of all the holy Sacraments, which are, as it were, the signs that your Son left us on earth. Thus, Most Holy Mother, with the peace of God in our consciences, with our hearts free from evil and hatred, we will be able to bring to all others true joy and peace, which come to us from your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ,
who with the Father and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen. -
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The Apparition to Saint Juan DiegoSource: https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07043a.htm
Oral and written, Indian and Spanish, the account is unwavering. To a neophyte, fifty five years old, named Juan Diego, who was hurrying down Tepeyac hill to hear Mass in Mexico City, on Saturday, 9 December, 1531, the Blessed Virgin appeared and sent him to Bishop Zumárraga to have a temple built where she stood. She was at the same place that evening and Sunday evening to get the bishop's answer. He had not immediately believed the messenger; having cross-questioned him and had him watched, he finally bade him ask a sign of the lady who said she was the mother of the true God. The neophyte agreed so readily to ask any sign desired, that the bishop was impressed and left the sign to the apparition.
Juan was occupied all Monday with Bernardino, an uncle, who seemed dying of fever. Indian specifics failed; so at daybreak on Tuesday, 12 December, the grieved nephew was running to the St. James's convent for a priest. To avoid the apparition and untimely message to the bishop, he slipped round where the well chapel now stands.
But the Blessed Virgin crossed down to meet him and said: "What road is this thou takest son?" A tender dialogue ensued. Reassuring Juan about his uncle whom at that instant she cured, appearing to him also and calling herself Holy Mary of Guadalupe she bade him go again to the bishop.
Without hesitating he joyously asked the sign. She told him to go up to the rocks and gather roses. He knew it was neither the time nor the place for roses, but he went and found them. Gathering many into the lap of his tilma a long cloak or wrapper used by Mexican Indians he came back. The Holy Mother, rearranging the roses, bade him keep them untouched and unseen till he reached the bishop. Having got to the presence of Zumárraga, Juan offered the sign. As he unfolded his cloak the roses fell out, and he was startled to see the bishop and his attendants kneeling before him: the life size figure of the Virgin Mother, just as he had described her, was glowing on the poor tilma.
A great mural decoration in the renovated basilica commemorates the scene. The picture was venerated, guarded in the bishop's chapel, and soon after carried processionally to the preliminary shrine. -
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Approbation
Pope Benedict XIV granted the Most Holy Virgin of Guadalupe her own Mass and Office to be celebrated annually on December 12th, with a decree signed by the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation of Rites on April 24, 1754.
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The Miraculous Tilma
Source: https://olg.cc/about/about-our-patroness/our-ladys-image-on-the-tilma/
Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared in Mexico as the pregnant Mother of God to Blessed Juan Diego, and Aztec Indian, on December 9, 10, and 12, 1531. She left a Miraculous Image of her appearance o his cactus fiber cloak, or tilma, which still exists today for all to see in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City.Our Lady came to offer faith, hope an consolation to the oppressed natives of Mexico and to reconcile then with their Spanish rulers. She put an end to the bloody human sacrifice of the Aztecs and converted ten million natives in the next 10 years!
The Image of Our Lady is actually an Aztec Pictograph that was read and interpreted quickly by the Aztec Indians:
- THE LADY STOOD IN FRONT OF THE SUN: She was greater than their dreaded sun-god "Huitzilopochtli".
- HER FOOT RESTED ON THE CRESCENT MOON: She had clearly vanquished their foremost deity, the feather serpent "Quetzalcoatl."
- THE STARS STREWN ACROSS THE MANTLE: She was greater than the stars of heaven that they worshipped. She was a virgin and the Queen of the heavens for Virgo rests over her womb and the northern crown upon her head. She appeared on December 12, 1531 for the stars that she wore are the constellation of stars that appeared in the sky that day!
- THE BLUE-GREEN HUE OF HER MANTLE: She was a Queen for she wears the color of royalty.
- THE BLACK CROSS ON THE BROOCH AT HER NECK: Her God was that of the Spanish Missionaries, Jesus Christ her son.
- THE BLACK BELT: She was with child for she wore the Aztec Maternity Belt.
- THE FOUR-PETAL FLOWER OVER THE WOMB: She was the "Mother of God." The flower was a special symbol of life, movement and deity-the center of the universe.
- HER HANDS ARE JOINED IN PRAYER: She was not God but clearly there was one greater than Her and she pointed her finger to the cross on her brooch.
- THE DESIGN ON HER ROSE COLORED GARMENT: She is the "Queen of the Earth" for she is wearing a map of Mexico telling the Indians exactly where the apparition took place.
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