Four days in December, 1531
Ten years after the fall of Tenochtitlan, on the morning of December 9, 1531, a Nahua convert named Juan Diego was walking to Mass past the hill of Tepeyac, north of what is now Mexico City. He heard birdsong that was not birdsong, climbed the hill, and found a young woman who spoke to him in his own language, Nahuatl. She told him she was the Mother of the true God and asked that a church be built on that spot, where she could show her love and compassion to all who called on her. She sent him to the bishop, Juan de Zumárraga.
The bishop listened, doubted, and asked for a sign. Juan Diego returned to the hill twice more. On the fourth day, December 12, with his uncle Juan Bernardino dying at home, he tried to go around the hill to fetch a priest and avoid the Lady altogether. She met him anyway and spoke the words that pilgrims to Tepeyac know by heart: "Am I not here, I who am your mother?" She told him his uncle was already healed, and sent him to the top of Tepeyac to gather flowers. In the frost of December he found Castilian roses, which do not grow there, and carried them to the bishop folded in his tilma, the coarse cloak of woven cactus fiber that a poor man wore. When he opened the cloak before Zumárraga the roses fell out and the image was on the cloth.
The account was written down in Nahuatl in the sixteenth century as the Nican Mopohua, "Here it is told." The tilma, which should have rotted within decades, hangs in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City. Juan Diego was canonized there by St. John Paul II in 2002; his feast is December 9.
Reading the image
The image on the tilma is not a portrait in the European sense. It is a message, and every element spoke to the people of Mexico in a language they already knew. A statue reproduces those elements in the round, and it helps to know what you are looking at.
- The rays of the sun. She stands in front of the sun, not beneath it. To a people who had worshipped the sun, this said that she was greater than it; to a Christian reader it is Revelation 12, "a woman clothed with the sun."
- The crescent moon. Under her feet, again from Revelation, and again a sign that the old gods of the sky were beneath her.
- The angel. A small winged figure holds up the hem of her mantle and tunic. Only royalty and the divine were carried in this way.
- The blue-green mantle. The color of the mantle was reserved for the highest rank in the Aztec world. It is scattered with stars, and it has often been observed that they match the arrangement of the winter sky over Mexico in December 1531.
- The rose tunic and the flowers. The tunic is embroidered with gold flowers. Over her womb is a single four-petaled flower, the Nahuatl sign for the center of the world and the meeting of heaven and earth.
- The black sash. Tied high above her waist, it is the belt worn by an expectant mother. She comes to Mexico carrying the Child.
- The hands and the eyes. Her hands are joined and her head is bowed. She is not a goddess; she prays to someone greater than herself. Her face is neither Spanish nor Indian but both, the face of the new people who would be born of that meeting.
On a well-made statue you can find all of this. Look first at the rays, which should surround the whole figure, not fan out behind the shoulders; then the stars on the mantle, the flower on the tunic, and the sash. In our Fancy finish the rays, stars, and flowers are picked out in gold; in Standard they are painted; in Monotone the whole figure is one tone and the forms carry the meaning.
How the feast is kept
December 12 is a feast on the calendar of the United States and a solemnity in Mexico. St. John Paul II named her Patroness of the Americas, and in any parish with a Mexican or Central American community the day is one of the largest celebrations of the year.
It begins the night before. Parishes fill after dark for a vigil of song and prayer that runs past midnight, and at dawn on the twelfth the people sing Las Mañanitas, the traditional birthday song, to Our Lady with mariachi or guitars. There is a Mass, often several, with the image carried in procession, banked with roses, and surrounded by children dressed as Juan Diego in white cotton and a serape. In many places the matachines dance before the image in feathered headdresses. A novena begins on December 3.
At home the celebration is smaller and the same in kind: the statue on the family altar is cleaned and given fresh roses, and the family prays before it together, sometimes the rosary, sometimes only the Mañanitas and a decade. Families with a garden shrine set roses at her feet on the twelfth and light a candle in the evening.
When to order
Because the feast falls in the same month as Christmas, December is our busiest shipping month and freight carriers are slowest. A statue in stock in Florida ships in three to six business days, but a large one goes by freight and December freight can add a week. A made-to-order statue takes longer still, and a Fancy finish cannot be hurried.
For a parish that wants a new statue blessed at the December 12 Mass, order by late October. For an in-stock home altar piece, mid-November is safe. If it is already December, call us at (828) 777-4517 before ordering, and we will tell you honestly what will arrive in time.
Which size for where
A home altar. An 18-inch Guadalupe puts the face at a praying height on a table or a low cabinet and still shows every element of the image. Smaller sizes suit a bedside or a child's room; the 38-inch is for a dedicated prayer room or a large entry.
A garden shrine. The 38-inch is the size most families choose for a shrine beside the house or at the end of a walk, on a pedestal of a foot or so, in the Standard finish sealed for exterior placement. It is tall enough to be seen from the street and light enough to bring in for a hurricane.
A plaza or a church entrance, with St. Juan Diego. The pairing parishes ask for is Our Lady standing with Juan Diego kneeling before her, his tilma open, his head at about her waist. Our 59-inch Guadalupe with the 39-inch kneeling Juan Diego suits a courtyard or a side entrance; the 86-inch Guadalupe with the 68-inch Juan Diego suits a plaza with a raised pedestal and a long approach. Set her a step higher than him, on her own base, so that she rises above him as she does in the image.
Choosing one
The 18-inch Our Lady of Guadalupe is the home altar size and a good gift for a quinceañera or a wedding. The 38-inch is the garden shrine size, or the choice for a large home entry or a classroom. The 59-inch stands at a church entrance, a courtyard, or beside a side altar, and pairs with the 39-inch kneeling St. Juan Diego, sealed for outdoor placement. Choose Fancy only for a statue that will live indoors, where the gold rays will stay bright.
