St. Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin

Biography

St. Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin (c. 1474–1548) was born in Cuauhtitlán, north of present-day Mexico City, a member of the Chichimeca people. Around 1524 he and his wife, María Lucía, were baptized by Franciscan missionaries. According to the Nican Mopohua, a Nahuatl account published in 1649 and traditionally attributed to Antonio Valeriano, on December 9, 1531, while walking to Mass, Juan Diego met a radiant Lady on the hill of Tepeyac who called herself the ever-virgin Mother of the true God and asked for a church to be built there. Bishop Juan de Zumárraga asked for a sign. On December 12, as Juan Diego hurried to find a priest for his gravely ill uncle, Juan Bernardino, the Lady assured him, 'Am I not here, I who am your mother?' His uncle was healed. She sent Juan Diego to gather roses on the hilltop, and when he opened his tilma, or cloak, before the bishop, her image appeared on it. That image is venerated today in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City. Juan Diego spent his remaining years in a small hermitage beside the chapel, caring for it and telling pilgrims what he had seen. He died in 1548. After historical study of his life, Pope St. John Paul II beatified him in 1990 and canonized him in Mexico City on July 31, 2002.

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