Today, December 9, is the memorial of Saint Juan Diego.
Visionary of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
He was born Juan Diego Cuāuhtlahtoātzin in 1474 to an impoverished free man in a strongly class-conscious society. He was a farm worker, field laborer, and mat maker.
He was married to Maria Lucia and they had no children. Already a respectful and gracious person even as a pagan, he became an adult convert to Christianity around age 50. He became a widower in 1529, two years before the Guadalupe apparitions.
He is known as the visionary to whom the Virgin Mary appeared at Guadalupe on December 9, 1531. In the fourth apparition, the Virgin Mary chided Juan Diego which is now the most famous phrase of the Guadalupe apparitions, “Am I not here, I who am your mother?”
She instructed Juan Diego to gather flowers in the hill. It turned out the many flowers he found there were out of season and blooming where only the cactus normally grew. He used his mantle as a sack to gather the flowers. Our Lady told him to show them to the bishop. When Juan Diego faced the bishop, he opened his mantle and out poured the flowers. But there was something else: the mantle had an image now known as Our Lady of Guadalupe.
He died of natural causes in 1548. Pope Saint John II beatified Juan Diego in 1990 and canonized him in 2002. Both ceremonies were held at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City.