Our Lady of Guadalupe: Winter Roses Filled His Tilma… Then the Image Appeared (Fr Cristino)

Our Lady of Guadalupe and the miraculous tilma. Winter roses in December, a humble cloak, and the image that appeared by the hand of God.

This is the moment that changed history and transformed the faith of an entire continent.

In this Advent episode, Father Cristino shares the true story behind the Tilma miracle: the roses gathered on Tepeyac Hill, the sign given to the bishop, and the supernatural image that appeared instantly on Juan Diego’s cloak. This single event ignited one of the largest conversions in Church history and continues to inspire millions of Catholics today.

Transcript

Welcome back, Father Cristino. Thank you. We find ourselves at the second Friday of Advent here. And we also find ourselves on a unique feast day, Our Lady of Guadalupe, right? I um it seems that you've had some personal experience with Our Lady of Guadalupe. Uh can you tell us a little bit about her? Yeah, I'd love to. Uh I she's very dear to me, this way in which she appeared uh almost exactly 500 years ago. We're are fast approaching uh the anniversary of that apparition and uh I think it's a very important season for us actually because she appeared in Mexico, what is now uh what we would observe as Mexico City in the year 1530. And so we are 5 years away uh from the 500th anniversary. And the year 2030 will also mark the 3 years of preparation for the great jubilee of the year 2033 which is the 2000th of the biillennial celebration of our salvation. Uh our lord's uh pascal mystery which was preceded by his 3 years of public ministry. Therefore beginning in the year 2030 we'll have 3 years of preparing oursel for the great jubilee of 2033. And I think it's beautiful that that first period, that three-year period will begin coinciding with this 500th anniversary of our lady's apparition in Mexico. Because really what we can attribute to her is uh the conversion of practically the entire southern portion of our continent uh by virtue of coming to the native people of Mexico as one of them. And I think that's some something very exceptional that we observe on this feast day. uh December the 12th happens to be a Friday of Advent this year. So it's very uh providential that we can talk about her on today's feast day because on December the 12th in the year 1530 was the culmination of the apparitions that this Indian peasant a Mexican Indian peasant who by then was already baptized but was in a minority. His name was Ju Diego which was his uh baptismal name. I can never pronounce what his actual indigenous name was, so I won't even bother trying. But he was a man of deep faith and deep piety. Uh, and so he had these apparitions of seeing our lady appear on Tepayak Hill. And so much so that he eventually even wanted to try and avoid it because he couldn't understand what was happening and how this magnificent princess as he described her was appearing to him. Uh, and this is the story of how she wanted a basilica to be built on that spot. And so she was sending him to go and ask the bishop to instruct the people there to have a church built on the side of that hill. And the bishop refused because first of all, who are you to ask me what to do? But second of all, how can I believe that the Virgin Mary is asking this? Mhm. And it still wasn't even necessarily clear that he understood that this was the Virgin Mary. And so this was the sign that she provided for him on the final day that she appeared to him on December the 12th. She said, "Come and cut some roses that are growing on the on this hill." Uh which it was December, it's still even though it's Mexico, it can get cold there. And on the top of that hill, there was always snow at that time of year. And growing out of the snow were what are called Castellian roses. These were roses that were native to the area of Spain that the bishop was from. He would have immediately recognized these roses and certainly know that you could not have found fresh cut ones there in December. Oh, I didn't know that. And so he cuts these roses and bundles them up in the cloak that he wore, which they called a tilma. And of course, when he goes and appears before the bishop, he says, "Here's the sign from the lady." And he opens up the tilma to let the roses fall. And it is then that we see emlazened into uh his cloak this image that has now been preserved and known as the image of our lady of Guadalupe. And that original tilma still hangs to this day in the massive basilica that has been built on that site. And there are many many miraculous things associated with it. Uh maybe to name just a few uh there is uh known to be uh the sound of a heartbeat that can be heard through uh the a stethoscope when it's placed against the tilma. Really uh you can see that she is depicted as pregnant according to the way that the indigenous people would have seen her. She is a mystita. She is one of them. She's not uh sort of like this beautiful image of our lady of Fatima, you know, pale-faced and maybe what you would expect a European to look like. She appeared to them as though she was one of them. Uh and her hair, you see, is worn down on both sides, which would be a sign that she is unmarried, that she is a virgin. Uh and yet she's wearing this kind of girdle that was worn by a pregnant woman. And so there's a mystery already being conveyed in the image that though a virgin, she's expecting a child. Uh and it is possible that you can hear that heartbeat in both places on the tilma in the womb and over her own heart. Wow. Uh there's also um signs that are woven into it. Too many to recount in a brief episode like this. But one of the kind of collective signs of its power I would say is the fact that uh people have been trying to destroy it for 500 years and it's indestructible. They've set off bombs underneath it and it didn't get damaged. People have tried to stab it and shoot it and burn it and nothing they do seems to be able to get rid of this miraculous sign that she has given to us. uh which after it occurred and this began to be venerated and people began to hear the story of St. Ju Diego's uh testimony it is estimated that within 10 years 9 million people were converted and baptized into the Catholic faith uh on the Mexican peninsula and throughout southern uh the northern part of southern America. So her coming to us uh was really a kind of very heavenly directed evangelization. Uh and because she appeared as a local indigenous person to those people, indigenous people throughout the world have found in her a real sense of closeness. Uh and I know that it's been integral in my own work and the ministry that I do uh with and among indigenous people. uh the patronage of our lady of Guadalupe really seeing in her a sign that God comes to us h as one of us uh and he sends messengers ahead of himself uh in the form that we will best relate to and I think that the way that she appears in that image uh really does demonstrate that in in such a palpable uh and beautiful way. And so earlier this year, I was so blessed with the opportunity to be in Mexico and I had a few hours to spend in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe. And I I can't quite describe the exhilaration of It's funny, you have to ride this little conveyor belt so that you can't stay underneath it for too long. It just forces everyone to keep moving. But I just kept getting off and getting back on. I I couldn't stop looking up at her and really feeling like I was looking at her. Not an image, not not a picture, not a painting. We've seen so many of those. It really felt like her presence. Uh and to be close to her and to feel like she was looking down upon a sun uh was very touching. And so I just encourage uh your viewers to look up more about our lady of Guadalupe today and uh to hopefully try and be intentional about celebrating her feast and seeking her intercession. They might even find it interesting to look up a book called our Guadalupe and the flower world prophecy. fascinating book that demonstrates how so much of indigenous folklore that led up to the time of her apparition seemed as though it was repeated and fulfilled uh by her coming through the testimony of Juan Diego. So, Guadalupe and the flower world prophecy. I highly recommend that to your viewers. So, this image is very unique because in another type of art, for example, we have art behind her. The artists decided to depict Mary or Jesus in a certain manner using their own imagination where this is God choosing to show us how he wants Mary to be revealed in this time and in this culture. Right? So it's not seen through the lens of an artist interpretation of Mary. Precisely different than probably any other piece of imagery that I can think of in the history of the church. Maybe you're absolutely right. This this isn't iconography. This this is a glimpse into reality. And there's something very powerful about bringing that realization to look upon the actual Tilma itself and seeing that God uh painted this portrait. Well, thank you. Thank you for sharing. My pleasure.