December 9th - Saint Juan Diego, Model of Humility

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December 9th - Saint Juan Diego, Model of Humility

In April of 1990 Juan Diego was declared Blessed by Pope John Paul II
at the Vatican. The following month, in the Basilica of Our Lady of
Guadalupe in Mexico City, during his second visit to the shrine, John
Paul II performed the beatification ceremony. On July 2002 he was
canonized by the Church, during a ceremony celebrated by John Paul II,
again in the Basilica of Guadalupe.

Who was this Juan Diego?

Most historians agree that Juan Diego was born in 1474 in the calpulli
or ward of Tlayacac in Cuauhtitlan, which was established in 1168 by
Nahua tribesmen and conquered by the Aztec lord Axayacatl in 1467; and
was located 20 kilometers (14 miles) north of Tenochtitlan (Mexico
City).

His native name was Cuauhtlatoatzin, which could be translated as “One
who talks like an eagle” or “eagle that talks”.

The Nican Mopohua describes him as a 'macehualli' or “poor Indian”,
one who did not belong to any of the social categories of the Empire,
as priests, warriors, merchants,...but not a slave; a member of the
lowest and largest class in the Aztec Empire. When talking to Our Lady
he calls himself “a nobody”, and refers to it as the source of his
lack of credibility before the Bishop.

He devoted himself to hard work in the fields and manufacturing mats.
He owned a piece of land and a small house on it. He was happily
married but had no children.

Between 1524 and 1525 he was converted and baptized, as well as his
wife, receiving the Christian name of Juan Diego and her wife the name
of Maria Lucia. He was probably baptized by the famous and loved
Franciscan missionary Fray Toribio de Benavente, called “Motolinia”,
or “the poor one”, by the Indians for his extreme kindness and piety.

According to the first formal investigation by the Church about the
events, the Informaciones Guadalupanas of 1666, Juan Diego seems to
have been a very devoted, religious man, even before his conversion.
He was a solitary, mystical character, prone to spells of silence and
frequent penance and used to walk from his village to Tenochtitlan, 14
miles away, to receive instruction on the doctrine.

His wife Maria Lucia became sick and died in 1529. Juan Diego then
moves to live with his uncle Juan Bernardino in Tolpetlac, which was
closer (9 miles) to the church in Tlatelolco -Tenochtitlan.


A macehualli
He walked every Saturday and Sunday many miles to church, departing
early morning, before dawn, to be on time for Mass and religious
instruction classes. He walked on naked feet, as all the people of his
class, the macehualli. Only the higher social classes of the Aztecs
wore cactlis, or sandals, made with vegetal fibers or leather. He used
to wear in those chilly mornings a coarse-woven cactus cloth as a
mantle, a tilma or ayate made with fibers from the maguey cactus.
Cotton was only used by the upper Aztec classes.

During one of this walks to Tenochtitlan, which used to take about
three and a half hours between villages and mountains, the First
apparition occurred (See The apparitions page), in a place that is now
known as the “Capilla del Cerrito”, where the Blessed Virgin Mary
talked to him in his language, Nahuatl. She called him “Juanito, Juan
Dieguito “, “the most humble of my sons”, “my son the least”, “my
little dear”.
He was 57 years old, certainly an old age in a time and place where
the male life expectancy was barely above 40.

After the miracle of Guadalupe, Juan Diego moved to a room attached to
the chapel that housed the sacred image, after having given his
business and property to his uncle; and he spent the rest of his life
propagating the account of the apparitions to his countrymen.He died
on May 30, 1548, at the age of 74

Juan Diego deeply loved the Holy Eucharist, and by special permission
of the Bishop he received Holy Communion 3 times a week, a highly
unusual occurrence in those times. Pope John Paul II praised Juan
Diego for his simple faith nourished by catechesis and pictured him
(who said to the Blessed Virgin Mary: “I am a nobody, I am a small
rope, a tiny ladder, the tail end, a leaf”) as a model of humility for
all of us.

http://www.sancta.org/juandiego.html


Saint Quote:
The one who is our very Life descended into our world, and bore our
death, and slew it with the abundance of His own life. Thundering, He
called out to us to return to Him in heaven.
-- St. Augustine

Bible Quote
And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be humbled: and he that shall
humble himself shall be exalted. (Matthew 23:12)


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Now I make known unto you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to
you, which also you have received, and wherein you stand; By which
also you are saved, if you hold fast after what manner I preached unto
you, unless you have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first
of all, which I also received: how that Christ died for our sins,
according to the scriptures: And that he was buried, and that he rose
again the third day, according to the scriptures: And that he was seen
by Cephas; and after that by the eleven. Then he was seen by more than
five hundred brethren at once: of whom many remain until this present,
and some are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen by James, then by
all the apostles. And last of all, he was seen also by me, as by one
born out of due time.
-- Saint Paul the Apostle from 1 Corinthians 15: 1- 8