December 12 is the commemoration of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
In the United States, the day is a feast.
Linked to this day is December 9, which is the optional memorial of Juan Diego, to whom she appeared.
Here are 6 things to know and share . . .
1) Who was Juan Diego?
More formally known as St. Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, he lived from 1474 to 1548.
According to the biography of him on the Vatican web site,
Little is known about the life of Juan Diego before his conversion, but tradition and archaelogical and iconographical sources, along with the most important and oldest indigenous document on the event of Guadalupe, “El Nican Mopohua” (written in Náhuatl with Latin characters, 1556, by the Indigenous writer Antonio Valeriano), give some information on the life of the saint and the apparitions.
Juan Diego was born in 1474 with the name “Cuauhtlatoatzin” (“the talking eagle”) in Cuautlitlán, today part of Mexico City, Mexico.
He was a gifted member of the Chichimeca people, one of the more culturally advanced groups living in the Anáhuac Valley.
When he was 50 years old he was baptized by a Franciscan priest, Fr Peter da Gand, one of the first Franciscan missionaries.
2) What happened to him so that he is remembered today?
According to the Vatican biography,
On 9 December 1531, when Juan Diego was on his way to morning Mass, the Blessed Mother appeared to him on Tepeyac Hill, the outskirts of what is now Mexico City.
She asked him to go to the Bishop and to request in her name that a shrine be built at Tepeyac, where she promised to pour out her grace upon those who invoked her.
Note that this event took place on December 9th, which has become the memorial of St. Juan Diego.
3) What happened next?
Pray for Randi, that he be delivered from his obsessive hatred and bigotry.
No, I am trying to say “Pray for randy”.