The Veracity of the Mantle

The miracle of the guadalupano mantle has for almost 500 years provided the inspiration for the offerings, peregrinations and visits of the faithful, who travel by foot and on their knees, to render worship to her.

The mantle with the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe is for Mexico the test of her appearance and a patriotic symbol that confirms the conquest by the Spaniards and their catholicism over the indigenous towns. It embodies the legend or rather, the history, of Mexico when in 1531, a few years after the Spanish conquest, the Virgin of Guadalupe made three appearances to the Indian Juan Diego. As proof of the event she left her image recorded in a mantle of ayate, along with a pile of fresh roses in the harshness of winter.

The miracle happened at the Hill of the Tepeyac, already considered a sacred place by the indigenous people, a hill where they came to adore our mother Earth, called Tonayatzin.

The history of the Virgin of Guadalupe is intimately bound to the history of Mexico. The year of the appearances and the beginning of this cult is, in historical time, the year of the birth of Mexico as a nation. The devotion to the Virgin and the development of her cult run parallel to the creation of Mexican society and the formation of the national conscience.

Obviously, sceptics and scientists have doubted the veracity of the mantle and its story, which they accuse the Spaniards of creating in their eagerness to catholicize the town of Mexico. Different theories exist that discard the possibility of the miracle happening, theories that try to prove a falsification through the study of the materials used in the mantle. The Catholic faith of the Mexicans, however, does not listen. Nationalism and the necessity for refuge through the Divine has conserved the adoration, the miracle and the tradition of a myth that is the only truth for the believer.

“To belive in the divine is a privilege,” a believer said.

Juan Diego, now Saint Juan Diego, was canonized by the Vatican in December of 2002. The Basilica of Guadalupe is located to the north of the City of Mexico in La Villa and receives 10 million faithfuls every year. Four million visit La Villa every 12th of December alone, from different Mexican states and from countries around the world.