Saint Juan Diego

Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin was a Nahua man, born about 1474 near Mexico City, who was baptized by Franciscan missionaries in the years after the Spanish conquest. According to the account in Nahuatl known as the Nican Mopohua, printed in 1649, in December 1531 a Lady appeared to him on the hill of Tepeyac and, speaking his language, asked for a church to be built there; when the bishop asked for a sign, she told him to gather roses, out of season, in his cloak, and when he opened it before the bishop, the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe was found on it. He lived his last years in a hut beside the chapel and died in 1548. Some historians doubt that he existed, since early records are silent; he was canonized in 2002.