Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

Saint John Paul II declared Our Lady of Guadalupe as the patroness of the Americas: North, Central and South. Appearing to a devout native American in the hills outside of today's Mexico City, Our Lady instructed him to have the bishop build a shrine to her honor on the site. Asking a sign as proof, Our Lady imprinted her image on the inside of the tilma of Saint Juan Diego when he released the roses he had picked growing on the hillside that Our Lady had arranged inside his cloak. Depicted as an Aztec princess, who is the Mother of a deity, the image converted thousands and thousands of natives to the Christian faith. Despite efforts to destroy it, the image is preserved and intact nearly half a millennium after the initial event in 1531.