Originally published at National Catholic Register
“A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head.” — Revelation 12:1
In the morning twilight of Dec. 9, 1531, a breathtaking chorus of birdsong stopped the Aztec Indian Juan Diego in his tracks as he was rounding the foot of a hill called Tepeyac. The birds’ music so enthralled the fervent convert that he asked himself whether he was in a dream or, perhaps, even in Heaven, for the hill itself seemed to be singing responses to the birds each time their chorus quieted, a miraculous symphony of nature greeting the dawn. But the music ceased, and Juan Diego heard a woman’s voice calling from the hilltop: “Juanito! Juan Dieguito!”
Mystified, he ascended in the half-light to find a beautiful mestiza maiden awaiting him above, her raiment shining like the sun. Even the crag on which she stood radiated light. Perhaps Juan Diego thought of the Woman of Revelation with the moon under her feet — or perhaps he was too captivated even to think, for, according to the Nican Mopohua, the earliest and most authoritative account of the Guadalupe apparitions,
