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Saint Juan Diego
A Model of Humility
In April of 1990 Juan Diego was declared
Blessed by Pope John Paul II at the Vatican. The following month, in the
Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, during his second visit to
the shrine, John Paul II performed the beatification ceremony.
On July 2002 he was canonized by the Church, during a ceremony celebrated by
John Paul II, again in the Basilica of Guadalupe.
Who was this Juan Diego?
M ost historians agree that Juan Diego was born in 1474 in the calpulli
or ward of Tlayacac in Cuauhtitlan, which was established in 1168 by Nahua
tribesmen and conquered by the Aztec lord Axayacatl in 1467; and was located 20
kilometers (14 miles) north of Tenochtitlan (Mexico City).
His native name was Cuauhtlatoatzin,
which could be translated as "One who talks like an eagle" or "eagle that
talks".
The Nican Mopohua describes him as a 'macehualli'
or "poor Indian", one who did not belong to any of the social categories of the
Empire, as priests, warriors, merchants,...but not a slave; a member of the
lowest and largest class in the Aztec Empire. When talking to Our Lady he calls
himself "a nobody", and refers to it as the source of his lack of
credibility before the Bishop.
He devoted himself to hard work in the
fields and manufacturing mats. He owned a piece of land and a small house on
it. He was happily married but had no children.
Between 1524 and 1525 he was converted
and baptized, as well as his wife, receiving the Christian name of Juan Diego
and her wife the name of Maria Lucia. He was probably baptized by the famous
and loved Franciscan missionary Fray Toribio de Benavente, called "Motolinia",
or "the poor one", by the Indians for his extreme kindness and piety.
According to the first formal
investigation by the Church about the events, the Informaciones Guadalupanas
of 1666, Juan Diego seems to have been a very devoted, religious man, even
before his conversion. He was a solitary, mystical character, prone to spells
of silence and frequent penance and used to walk from his village to
Tenochtitlan, 14 miles away, to receive instruction on the doctrine.
His wife Maria Lucia became sick and died
in 1529. Juan Diego then moves to live with his uncle Juan Bernardino in
Tolpetlac, which was closer (9 miles) to the church in Tlatelolco
-Tenochtitlan.
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A macehualli
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H e walked every Saturday and Sunday many miles to church, departing
early morning, before dawn, to be on time for Mass and religious instruction
classes. He walked on naked feet, as all the people of his class, the macehualli.
Only the higher social classes of the Aztecs wore cactlis, or sandals,
made with vegetal fibers or leather. He used to wear in those chilly mornings a
coarse-woven cactus cloth as a mantle, a tilma or ayate made with
fibers from the maguey cactus. Cotton was only used by the upper Aztec classes.
During one of this walks to Tenochtitlan,
which used to take about three and a half hours between villages and mountains,
the First apparition occurred (See
The apparitions page), in a
place that is now known as the "Capilla del Cerrito", where the Blessed Virgin
Mary talked to him in his language, Nahuatl. She called him "Juanito,
Juan Dieguito ", "the most humble of my sons",
"my son the least", "my little
dear".
He was 57 years old, certainly an old age
in a time and place where the male life expectancy was barely above 40.
After the miracle of Guadalupe, Juan
Diego moved to a room attached to the chapel that housed the sacred image,
after having given his business and property to his uncle; and he spent the
rest of his life propagating the account of the apparitions to his countrymen.
He died on May 30, 1548, at the age of
74.
Juan Diego deeply loved the Holy
Eucharist, and by special permission of the Bishop he received Holy Communion
three times a week, a highly unusual occurrence in those times.
Pope John Paul II praised Juan Diego for
his simple faith nourished by catechesis and pictured him (who said to the
Blessed Virgin Mary: "I am a nobody, I am a small rope, a tiny ladder, the tail
end, a leaf") as a model of humility for all of us.
For more information:
www.sancta.org/juandiego.html
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