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Our Lady of Guadalupe
The Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, located within the northern city limits, is on the site where a poor Indian named Juan Diego is reputed to have seen a vision, on December 9, 1531, of a beautiful lady in a blue mantle. The local bishop, Zumarraga, was reticent to confirm that Juan had indeed seen the Virgin Mary, and so he asked the peasant for some evidence, Juan saw the vision a second time, on December 12, and it became miraculously emblazoned on the peasant's cloak. The bishop immediately ordered the building of a church on the spot, and upon its completion the image was hung in the place of honor, framed in gold.
Since that time millions upon millions of the devout and the curious have come to view the miraculous image that experts, it is said, are at a loss to explain. The blue-mantled Virgin of Guadalupe is the patron saint of Mexico.
So Heavy was the flow of visitors - many of whom approached for hundreds of yards on their knees - that the old church that was already fragile was insufficient to handle the crowd and an audacious new Basilica was built, designed by Pedro Ramirez Vasquez, the same architect who designed the breathtaking Museo Nacional de Antropologia.
Walk behind the altar for a view of the miraculous cloak, which hangs behind bullet proof glass above the altar. Electric people movers going in two directions move the crowds a distance below the cloak. If you want to see it again, take the people mover going in the opposite direction; you can do it as many times as you wish.
To the right of the modernistic Basilica, is an old Basilica, actually the second one built to house the cloak-the original is higher up on the hill. To the back of it is the entrance to the Basilica Museum, with a very good display of religious art in restored rooms.
Outside the museum is a garden commemorating the moment Juan Diego showed the cloak to the archbishop. At the top of the hill, behind the Basilica, is a cemetery for Mexico's more infamous luminaries. The steps up this hill are lined with flowers, shrubs, and waterfalls, and the climb, although tiring, is worthwhile for the view from the top.
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Prayer:
O our Lady of Guadalupe, mystical rose, make intercession for Holy Church, protect the Sovereign Pontiff, help all those who invoke thee in their necessities, and since thou art the ever Virgin Mary and Mother of the true God, obtain for us from thy most holy Son the grace of keeping our faith, sweet hope in the midst of the bitterness of life, burning charity and the precious gift of final perseverance.
500 days indulgence.
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