The account handed down in the Nahuatl narrative known as the Nican Mopohua tells how in December 1531 a recently baptized indigenous man, Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, met the Mother of God on the hill of Tepeyac near Mexico City. She spoke to him in his own language, called herself his mother, and asked that a church be built there. When the bishop asked for a sign, she filled Juan Diego's tilma with Castilian roses out of season, and when he opened the cloak before the bishop the image of the Virgin appeared on it. That image, dark-skinned and dressed as a native noblewoman with child, is venerated in the basilica at Tepeyac and remains one of the most visited shrines in the world. The evangelization of the peoples of Mexico advanced enormously in the years that followed, and the Church has always read the event in that light: the Gospel was received not as the religion of the conquerors but in the language and the imagery of the conquered. Pope Benedict XIV approved the Mass and Office in 1754. Pope Pius XII called her Empress of the Americas, Saint John Paul II canonized Juan Diego in 2002, and in 1999 he declared Our Lady of Guadalupe Patroness of America and asked that December 12 be kept throughout the continent. Ranks differ by calendar, and the difference is worth knowing. In the General Roman Calendar the celebration is an optional memorial; in the dioceses of Mexico it is a solemnity; in the dioceses of the United States it is a feast, celebrated in white with proper prayers even though it falls within Advent. It is not a holy day of obligation in the United States. The customs of the day are among the most vivid in the Church: the mañanitas sung before dawn, processions with the image, dancing before the shrine in the ancient manner, and the pilgrimage of families and parishes. The Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy speaks with warmth of such expressions of Marian devotion among peoples who have made the faith their own, asking only that they remain joined to the liturgy and open to the whole of Christian life.

Feast

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Advent

December 12

feast