December 9, 2023, St. Juan Diego, Holy Rosary (Joyful Mysteries) | Prayer for Peace

On December 9th, we celebrate St. Juan Diego, the indigenous Aztec pagan convert whose encounter with the Virgin Mary in 1531 began the devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Juan Diego was hurrying to Mass to celebrate the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.

In the native Aztec dialect, a radiant heavenly woman announced herself as the “ever-perfect holy Mary, who has the honor to be the mother of the true God.”

“I am your compassionate Mother, yours and that of all the people that live together in this land,” she continued, “and also of all the other various lineages of men.”

She asked Juan Diego to request to the local bishop. “I want very much that they build my sacred little house here” — a house dedicated to her son Jesus Christ, on the site of a former pagan temple, that would show him to all Mexicans and exalt him throughout the world.

The Mexico City basilica and the tilma of Juan Diego — the traditional cloak-like garment he was wearing containing the flowers until he had reached the local bishop — has become one of the world’s most-visited Catholic shrines.

St. John Paul II beatified St. Juan Diego in 1990 and canonized him in 2002.