December 12th is known in Mexico and America as the Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe (Dia de Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe) celebrating the appearance of the Virgin Mary on Dec. 9th to the Aztec native and Christian convert Juan Diego, in 1531.

On his way to church for morning services, Juan Diego, age 57, climbed through the Tepayac Hill country in central Mexico. Near Tepayac Hill, he encountered, by surprise, a beautiful dark skinned woman surrounded by a ball of light as bright as the sun. She spoke to him in his native tongue and asked him to go to the bishop and request that a church be erected in her honor, on the very spot they were standing.
It is believed that the word Guadalupe was actually a Spanish mistranslation of the local Aztec dialect. The word that Mary probably used was "Coatlallope" which means "one who treads on snakes"! Within six years of this apparition, six million native Mexicans had converted to Catholicism.

Not only a church, eventually the Basilica of Guadalupe, was built on the site of the apparition. The tilma, the relic, has been kept in this cathedral and inexplicably preserved for more than 400 years. The image on the tilma is one of the Virgin surrounded by the light of heaven and the stars of the winter solstice sky. The stars represented on the Virgin's mantle are said to be the exact constellations that were present at the time the tilma was presented to the bishop. It remains complete and on display to this day. Basilica de Guadalupe is, by far, the most popular religious pilgrimage site in the Western Hemisphere and the Americas.