One Version­ Early on a cold Saturday morning (Dec. 9, 1531): Juan Diego, baptized into the faith as an adult in 1523, was on his way to assist at Mass about 2 1/2 miles from Tlatleloco, where there was a church and where the Spaniards had concluded their conquest of Mexico ten years earlier. Suddenly he heard beautiful music and a woman's voice calling to him from the top of Tepeyac hill, which he was then passing. At the top he saw a beautiful woman, who revealed that she was the Blessed Virgin and instructed him to visit the bishop, to tell him that a temple should be built in her honor at the base of the hill. Juan Diego went immediately to Bishop 'Juan de Zumarraga' who received him kindly but was reluctant to believe the story. Juan Diego returned to the hill to report his failure, and the Lady told him to return to the bishop, repeating the request. On Sunday (Dec. 10): Juan Diego returned to the bishop who, after many questions, said he wanted some kind of sign before believing that it was really Our Lady who appeared. Juan Diego relayed the message to the Lady, who told him to come back on the next day when she would fulfill the request. On Monday (Dec. 11): However, the uncle of Juan Diego became gravely ill, so he was unable to return to Tepeyac. After a day of fruitlessly searching for someone able to help his uncle, Juan Diego told him that he would bring a priest the next morning so that he could then make his confession and prepare to die. Early Tuesday morning (Dec. 12): Rushing toward Tlatleloco to find a priest, he had to pass Tepeyac hill. Thinking it better not to let the Lady interrupt his errand of mercy, he decided to pass by, going around the other side of the hill. But the Lady came down the hill to meet him. After listening to his explanation for not keeping the appointment, she told him that his uncle would not die of the sickness and that he was healthy. (That same morning, the Lady appeared to his uncle and cured him.) Juan Diego was greatly relieved. The Lady then told him to go to the top of the hill and to gather the flowers he would find there. On arriving at the top, he found in the frozen earth a miraculous garden of roses not native to the area, gathered some, and then brought them to the Lady, who arranged them in his cloak and told him to take them to the bishop as the sign he had requested. When Juan Diego arrived to give them to the bishop, he opened the cloak and the roses fell to the floor. They both then discovered something even more wondrous: a remarkable portrait of the Lady was imprinted on the coarse fabric of the cloak. The image and cloak are displayed for the veneration of the faithful to this day at the Cathedral of Mexico City. The cloak of Juan Diego (tilma, from the Aztec) is a kind of apron worn from the neck and shoulders, handwoven from coarse maguey thread. All experts who have examined the image can not explain how it could have been painted on that textile without some sort of under-coating. Yet no under-coating can be found. The humid climate and atmosphere of the area are sufficient to disintegrate buildings and corrode iron; more than 450 years have passed. Before the image was covered with glass, it was exposed to the smoke of countless candles and 70 lamps burning in the old church and was subject to the rubbing of millions of holy pictures, cloths, prints, medals and rosaries, and the devout kissing of countless pilgrims. When silversmiths were cleaning the gold frame, some etching fluid spilled on the image; yet in all this time the image has suffered no harm. Repeated and detailed studies seem to uncover new wonders in the image. To mention only one: evident in one of Our Lady's eyes is an image of Juan Diego himself. Among the many lessons to be drawn from Our Lady of Guadalupe, we might reflect on the Church's essential ministry of missionary preaching. Our Lady gave roses in December, assuring us of her loving care, even in times of suffering. Her mestiza face expresses the love of a mother, the only one capable of uniting into one family the diverse races and bloods of America. Juan Diego was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1990, and his feast day is celebrated on Dec. 9. The feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe is Dec. 12. In Ecclesia in America (The Church in America), Pope John Paul II's post-synodal exhortation delivered at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City in 1999, he said: "The apearance of Mary to the native Juan Diego on the hill of Tepeyac in 1531 had a decisive effect on evangelization. Its influence greatly overflows the boundaries of Mexico, spreading to the whole continent. "It is my heartfelt hope that she, whose intercession was responsible for strengthening the faith of the first disciples , will by her maternal intercession guide the Church in America, obtaining the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, as she once did for the early Church , so that the new evangelization may yield a splendid flowering of Christian life."