Mary's House Carried to Loreto,Italy

Our Blessed mother, Mary, was born in a small, three-walled house in Nazareth. It was in this house that the Archangel St. Gabriel announced the Incarnation. After Jesus was born in Bethlehem and presented to God at the temple, Mary St. Joseph and Jesus returned to Nazareth and lived in the same small house.

Today, those three walls sit, without a foundation, on an ancient public road in Loreto, Italy. One of the walls actually protrudes over a ditch. How it got there is described in the book, The Miracle of the Holy House of Loreto by Federico Catani. In summary, he explains that Mary's house was carried there by angels from Nazareth. Catani goes into specific detail about past rumors, and present facts, describing a miracle that Pope Saint John Paul II wrote is the "first sanctuary of international importance dedicated to the Virgin Mary and, for several centuries, the true Marian heart of Christianity."

Our Lady of Guadalupe

Our Lady of Guadalupe was declared patroness of the Americas. Since she is portrayed as an expectant mother pregnant with Jesus, she is also the patron of the Right to Life movement.

First apparition

Our Lady of Guadalupe first introduced herself as the Mother of God and the mother of all humanity when she appeared on the hill of Tepeyac in Mexico in 1531. An indigenous peasant, Juan Diego, saw a glowing figure on the hill. After she had identified herself to him, Our Lady asked that Juan build her a shrine in that same spot, in order for her to show and share her love and compassion with all those who believe.

Afterwards, Juan Diego visited Juan de Zumárraga, who was Archbishop of what is now Mexico City. Zumárraga dismissed him in disbelief and asked that the future Saint provide proof of his story and proof of the Lady’s identity.

Juan Diego returned to the hill and encountered Our Lady again. The Virgin told him to climb to the top of the hill and pick some flowers to present to the Archbishop.

Winter bloom

Although it was winter and nothing should have been in bloom, Juan Diego found an abundance of flowers of a type he had never seen before. The Virgin bundled the flowers into Juan's cloak, known as a tilma. When Juan Diego presented the tilma of exotic flowers to Zumárraga, the flowers fell out and he recognised them as Castilian roses, which are not found in Mexico.

What was even more significant, however, was that the tilma had been miraculously imprinted with a colorful image of the Virgin herself.

Tilma

This actual tilma, preserved since that date and showing the familiar image of the Virgin Mary with her head bowed and hands together in prayer, represents the Virgin of Guadalupe. It remains perhaps the most sacred object in all of Mexico.

The story is best known from a manuscript written in the Aztec’s native language Nahuatl by the scholar Antonio Valeriano. It was written sometime after 1556.

Over 20 million people visit the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe each year, now situated on the very same hill on which she appeared.