On December 9, 1531, a Mexican Chichimec peasant named Juan Diego received his first of four miraculous apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Many of us are familiar with the story: the Blessed Mother, under the title of “Our Lady of Guadalupe,” miraculously left her image on his tilma, a tilma that has not disintegrated in over five hundred years and still bears her image to this very day. And yet, as familiar as we might be with the incredibly powerful story of Our Lady of Guadalupe … so many questions arise regarding Juan Diego himself.
The celebration of Our Lady’s feast comes just three days after that of Juan Diego—a big deal not only in Mexico but in all the Americas! For today, the Church asks us to look a little more closely at the life of Juan Diego and learn what we can, not just from the miracle that was bestowed upon him, but from the saint himself. So … who are you, Juan Diego?
We know that St. Juan Diego was born Aztec and given the name “Cuauhtlatoatzin,” which translated means “Eagle that talks.” The eagle happens to be the symbol of St. John the Evangelist, one of the four writers of the Gospels. Perhaps, like St. John, “Eagle that Talks” was providentially given a name that would later define who he was to become as a Christian.
Cuauhtlatoatzin was baptized at the age of fifty and received a new name, Juan Diego (notably, “Juan” is Spanish for “John”). Now here’s the thing … when I turned fifty, almost to the day, that’s when my aches and pains began. I started to wake up in the morning with stiff joints, thinking, “Everything hurts.” At fifty, people start dreaming of retirement. At fifty, people begin to slow down. At fifty, people are no longer focusing on the hopes and dreams of youth; they’re starting to think about becoming grandparents.
In the sixteenth century, if you even lived to age fifty, that was considered a long life. But for Juan Diego, his life was just getting started. Far more miraculous than the apparitions he was to witness was the Sacrament of Baptism he received at the eleventh hour of his life. So the first lesson we learn from Juan Diego is that it is never too late for people to change. There is never a reason to lose hope that someone can radically convert their lives to Christ, no matter what culture or way of thinking they may have been immersed in for the better part of their lives.
The second fascinating fact about Juan Diego is that it was another seven years after his baptism before Our Lady appeared to him. If he was achy and tired before, now he was seven years more achy and tired! Just when he was quietly, humbly winding down, Our Lady asked him to overturn his whole life. First, he was to go to the local bishop and tell him what he saw, then he was to have a new church built. What must have been going through Juan Diego’s mind? Did he think, “But I was planning to curl up in bed with a good book tonight!” At fifty-seven, surely Juan Diego had his life mapped out and was comfortable in his routine. And it’s not like Our Lady just asked him to stop for milk and bread on his way home.
What she was asking was not a minor inconvenience. She was asking him—an Aztec—to take on the bishop! Now let’s remember, baptized or not, there was plenty of anti-indigenous sentiment going around within the European settlement community, and even, shamefully, among some clergy. What Mary was asking of Juan Diego was—well, unimaginable. But still, Juan trusted. And so the second lesson we learn from Juan Diego’s life is that when Our Lady asks us for something that is totally contrary to what we have envisioned for our lives, totally outside our comfort zone, we can trust that she knows best. When Mary comes to us, she comes in the place of her son. She translates his will for us in a language we can understand because it is the language of a mother to her child.
Listen and understand, my littlest son, let nothing frighten and afflict you or trouble your heart … Am I not here, I, who am your mother? (Our Lady to Juan Diego)
Juan Diego does as Our Lady asks. He dumps the roses on the bishop’s lap, reveals the image in his tilma, gets approval for the church to be built … and then what happens? The Lord calls him to his eternal home, now that his mission has been accomplished, right? Not exactly. Juan Diego goes on to live another seventeen years. What does God have him do in that time? Nothing. Nothing, that is, in the eyes of the world. But when seen from the perspective of eternity, these final years are perhaps the most fruitful of his entire life. Juan Diego lived his last seventeen years next to the hermitage built at the foot of the hill of Tepeyac. He dedicated the rest of his life to serving the Blessed Mother.
In you, Lord, I have found my peace…
The Spanish priest and historian Miguel Sánchez refers to Juan Diego’s life at the hermitage as “uneventful,” but the reality is, Juan Diego must certainly have spent those years “praying without ceasing” for the conversion of the world, specifically through the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe. In the end, his prayers may not have obtained the conversion of the whole world, but they certainly obtained the conversion of his world:
By 1541, just 10 years after her appearance to Juan Diego, a historian of the time wrote that 9 million people in Mexico had converted to Catholicism! In a non-bloody way, the people of an entire country were converted … It was the largest mass conversion in history. (Mike Aquilina, How Our Lady of Guadalupe saved both the New World and the Old)
Those who follow you, Lord, will have the light of life.
Juan Diego’s mission was hardly over when he gained the belief of the bishop. It was just the beginning. His obedience to this one big event in his life obtained the grace of faith for this one “big” man; but it was Juan Diego’s perseverance in prayer that obtained the conversion of a nation, something that had previously been impossible for all the missionaries who had come to the New World with that same objective.
Juan Diego proves to us that it is never too late to carry out God’s will in mighty and powerful ways, nor do we have to go anywhere other than exactly where God has already placed us in order to work for the conversion of hearts. After all, it is Mary who obtains for us grace from her son. We just have to heed her words: “Do whatever he tells you” (Jn 2:5).
Author’s Note: If you’d like to read more reflections like this one, check out my newest release in The Safe Haven series, The Liturgical Seasons of Advent and Christmas, available from Amazon and The Catholic Store.
Image from Opus Day Today
