Part of Our Lady of Guadalupe’s First Chapel Still Stands 500 Years Later

Part of Our Lady of Guadalupe’s First Chapel Still Stands 500 Years Later

Traces of the first chapel where the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe was first kept within the Old Parish of the Indians. The often-overlooked chapel at Tepeyac, where St. Juan Diego lived and guarded the miraculous tilma for 17 years, remains a key part of the Guadalupe story and Mexico’s spiritual heritage.

Feast of St. Juan Diego (Dec. 9):Mary 'chose an Indigenous man to speak to Indigenous people' - Biweekly Newspaper for the Diocese of Richmond %

The story of St. Juan Diego and Our Lady of Guadalupe began with the well-known apparitions of 1531. The Indigenous visionary remained for years dedicated to the preservation and dissemination of the message of the Virgin Mary at a chapel that is still preserved and forms an essential part of the Marian complex of Tepeyac. Next to the current Guadalupe Basilica in Mexico City is the old chapel built to house the image miraculously imprinted on S…

Saint Juan Diego, Hidden Keeper of the Tilma

Amare nesciri – ‘love to be unknown’ – exhorted Saint Philip Neri (+1595), founder of the Oratorians, who himself was an unknown young tutor in Florence, living in a loft, in the early 16th century. At the same time, thousands of miles across the ocean in the mountainous region outside of what is now Mexico city, on a cold December morning, the middle-aged and even more unknown Saint Juan Diego was granted the rare privilege of seeing the Virgin…