St. Juan Diego
He tried to take a different road to avoid the whole thing.
Juan Diego was a fifty-something Nahua man walking to Mass in December 1531 when a young woman stopped him on Tepeyac hill, speaking his own language, and asked him to tell the bishop to build a church there. The bishop wanted proof.
Here is the human part. His uncle got sick, and Juan Diego, who now had a job from the Mother of God, tried to sneak around the other side of the hill to fetch a priest and avoid the conversation. She met him on that road too. She was, by his account, not annoyed.
She told him to gather flowers from a hilltop where nothing grows in December. He found Castilian roses. He carried them in his cloak to the bishop, opened it, and the image that is still hanging in Mexico City was on the inside.
St. Juan Diego facts for kids
- His Nahuatl name was Cuauhtlatoatzin, the one who speaks like an eagle
- He tried to take a different route to avoid her, and she met him there anyway
- The tilma is made of cactus fiber, which normally decays in about 20 years. It's been nearly 500.
- Around 10 million people visit the basilica each year
Feast day: December 9 · Patron of indigenous peoples of the Americas
St. Juan Diego, when I'm avoiding something, meet me on that road too.