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Virgen de Guadalupe

On December 9, 1531, some twelve years after Cortes arrived in Mexico, an indigenous peasant named Juan Diego encountered a beautiful, dark-skinned woman on Tepeyac Hill, the former site of an Aztec temple dedicated to the earth goddess Tonatzin. This mysterious woman identified herself as the Virgin Mary, and she asked Juan Diego to tell the bishop of Mexico to build a temple in her honor, so that she could comfort and defend Mexico’s weak and unfortunate. Three days later on December 12, the Church accepted the veracity of Juan Diego’s account, when an image of the dark-skinned virgin appeared miraculously upon the peasant’s cloak in the presence of the bishop. Every year on this date people throughout Mexico honor La Virgen de Guadalupe.