Apparition
Apparition of Our Lady of Ocotlán
Private revelation · Ocotlán, Tlaxcala, Mexico, 1541
In 1541, ten years after Guadalupe and during an epidemic that was emptying the villages of Tlaxcala, the Blessed Virgin Mary is remembered to have met the Christian Indian Juan Diego Bernardino as he carried water to his sick relatives, and to have shown him a spring whose water healed them. A statue of Our Lady was found in the pine grove that gives Ocotlán its name, and the sanctuary built there is one of the great Marian shrines of Mexico.
Background
The devotion has been repeatedly confirmed by the Church: Our Lady of Ocotlán was declared patroness of Tlaxcala in the eighteenth century, the image received a decree of canonical coronation from Pope Saint Pius X in 1909, and the sanctuary was later raised to the rank of a basilica. As at many colonial-era shrines, no juridical decree has ever pronounced on the apparition itself; what the Church approves and encourages is the cult.
Location
Ocotlán, Tlaxcala
Country
Mexico
Approved status
Private revelation
Year of apparition
1541
Visionaries
- Juan Diego Bernardino
Subject
marian
Decision year
1909
Content subtype
unapproved_apparition
Decision authority
Pope Saint Pius X, by the decree of canonical coronation of the image of Our Lady of Ocotlán