Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mexico City, Mexico

*WS56 – Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mexico City, Mexico*

Now back to Central America.

A few posting earlier we have noted that the Basilica of the Holy Family in Barcelona receives some 4 million visitors a year. The Vatican in Rome receives some 5+ million visitors a year. But the most visited church in Christendom is this Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mexico City with 10 to 11 million visitors a year. It is worthy to be introduced in this series.

First a bit of history, according to the church account. 

On December 9th, 1531 a native farmer Juan Diego, a new convert to Christianity, met a special lady at the Hill of Tepeyac in the northern part of Mexico City. The lady told Juan to ask the local bishop to build a church at the place where she appeared. Juan reported the encounter to the local bishop who told Juan to ask the lady for a miraculous sign to prove her identity if she appeared to him again. She did appear again a few days later and told Juan to pack some flowers in his peasant cloak or tilma to bring them to the bishop. Juan did that and saw the bishop the second time, on December 12th. After taking out the flowers, they found that the image of the Virgin Mary imprinted on the inside of the tilma.

The image that appears on the tilma is called Our Lady of Guadalupe by the Catholic Church, 1st photo which is downloaded from the internet. The Virgin Mary looks more like an indigenous girl. The starburst and dragons at the bottom of the image were added later on, not part of the original miracle. 

The apparition of the Virgin Mary here is one of the very few recognized by the Catholic Church as "worthy of belief". There are many miracles and supernatural properties associated with the image. I am not going to list them to burden the readers, except on one point. The tilma was made of natural plant material, likely agave leaves. A normal one would last 15 years at the most. This one lasted 500+ years without any structural degradation, exposed to dust, heat and humidity. For the 1st 115 years, it was left open (not even covered by glass) for veneration, touched by pilgrims and soaking up candle fumes, sweats, etc. The continued existence is in itself a miracle.

After the miraculous appearance of the image, a chapel was built at the site where the Virgin Mary first appeared. The chapel building was later expanded and became a full church in 1709 and was called the Basilica since 1904. Then a new and bigger building or the New Basilica was built between 1974 and 1976. The New Basilica is round in shape, 100 m in diameter and can accommodate 10,000 people. 

The 2nd to 4th photos show the old Basilica. The 4th photo shows the relief above the main entrance depicting the scene of the revelation of the image on Juan’s tilma. The 5th to 7th photos show the New Basilica. The 7th photo shows the original image of Our Lady of Guadalupe housed at the altar. The 8th photo shows the altar of another building in the complex, called the Pocito Chapel. An altar with a painted image of Our Lady of Guadalupe similar to the 8th photo could be found in most of the Catholic Churches in Malaysia, and in the World. 

We were here for a few hours on a Monday afternoon in 2013 and attended a mass in Spanish. My wife and I are Catholics.