Original subtitles

[choir singing]

♪

[dramatic instrumental music]

♪

male narrator: Nearly five centuries have passed,

yet this event endures in the hearts of millions,

transcending divisions and uniting cultures

with its timeless message.

♪

Its legacy: an ancient fabric miraculously intact,

an image that defies scientific explanation,

an intricate set of symbols

that would bridge two worlds and countless cultures,

and the transformation of a continent.

♪

This is the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

♪

When Pope John Paul II arrived in Mexico City

for the canonization of Saint Juan Diego

in July of 2002,

millions of Mexican Catholics turned out.

[crowd yelling]

They lined the streets and filled the plazas.

They came together to celebrate the making

of the first indigenous saint of the Western Hemisphere

and the woman whose image has changed the course of history.

- The canonization of Saint Juan Diego

is very significant,

because if the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe

is not authentic,

there is no Saint Juan Diego.

So as part of that whole process

of reviewing the life of Juan Diego,

you have to validate, authenticate

the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

So that's one way in which his canonization

is very significant.

[dramatic percussive music]

♪

narrator: When the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés

landed in Mexico in 1519,

he encountered a thriving Aztec empire

that extended throughout Mexico's central plateau.

According to an indigenous legend,

the Aztec god Huitzilopochtli delivered a sign

indicating where they should build their city:

at the site where an eagle, perched on a cactus,

was seen devouring a snake.

♪

In 1324, the Aztecs founded a city named Tenochtitlan,

which for them was the center of the universe,

the place where the cycle of the universe was sustained

by human sacrifices.

Hernán Cortés formed a military alliance

with native tribes opposed to the Aztecs.

Amazingly, in just two short years,

he succeeded in conquering the Aztec empire.

The Spaniards began constructing a new capital

using materials

from the recently destroyed Tenochtitlan,

or present-day Mexico City.

During the first stage of evangelization,

a few missionaries attempted to convert the indigenous people.

However, the task would prove to be

a very arduous undertaking.

- To understand the dramatic impact

that Our Lady of Guadalupe has on the native population,

you really have to put yourself in the position of these people

at the collapse of the Aztec Empire

and what their understanding of religion really was.

We have to remember the horrific face

of the Aztec deities

that were there to receive the human sacrifices.

We have to understand the history of the Flower Wars,

in which battles were waged

in order to obtain prisoners for sacrifice.

So now what were the native peoples expecting

the god of the Spaniards to be like,

the victors to be like?

narrator: Bishop Juan de Zumárraga

was known as protector of the Indians.

He bears the responsibility of defending the natives

from cruel abuses carried out by the new Spanish government,

including their widespread enslavement and murder.

His courageous stand

leads to at least one assassination attempt

by corrupt members of the first audiencia,

or royal court, in New Spain.

Bishop Zumárraga, infuriated by the continued abuses,

and facing numerous threats

against the lives of his fellow priests,

decides upon drastic measures.

In 1530, he excommunicates the members of the first audiencia

and abandons Mexico City.

narrator: Zumárraga wrote a letter to Emperor Charles V

detailing the many abuses carried out

against the native people.

narrator: The story of what happens next

is passed down through the centuries

by the humble man who experienced this event

and who shared his encounter widely.

Eventually, his testimony is captured in an ancient text

known as the Nican Mopohua, written in the 16th century

by the Indian scholar Antonio Valeriano.

narrator: The Nican Mopohua

recounts the story of Juan Diego,

a Catholic convert and widower.

His Indian name was Cuauhtlatoatzin,

meaning "eagle who speaks divine things."

Some skeptics have cast doubt

on Juan Diego's historical existence,

a claim denied by Miguel León-Portilla,

a premier authority on Aztec language and culture.

- In the apparitions in Mexico

of Our Lady of Guadalupe,

like many other apparitions in the world,

oftentimes Our Lady will appear to very humble people

and, in this case, to the Indian Juan Diego,

a humble man, a very simple man of simple faith,

because those who have a heart like children

and who are open to God can receive this message.

narrator: On December 9, 1531, Juan Diego walks

along the western side of Tepeyac Hill

on his way to catechism at a Franciscan mission

just north of Mexico City.

narrator: According to the account

in the Nican Mopohua,

the woman identifies herself as "the mother of the true God"

and asks that a sacred house be constructed in her honor

on Tepeyac Hill.

She asks Juan Diego to bring this message

to Bishop Zumárraga.

- [speaking Nahuatl]

narrator: Juan Diego returns to Tepeyac Hill empty-handed.

The woman asks him to return to Bishop Zumárraga

with the same message.

He obeys, and this time, the bishop asks for a sign.

narrator: On Monday, Juan Diego fails to show up.

His uncle Bernardino is gravely ill, facing death.

narrator: He asks Juan Diego to find a priest

to administer last rites.

On December 12, 1531,

Juan Diego sets out towards Tlatelolco

to find a priest for his uncle.

narrator: In a hurry,

Juan Diego tries to avoid meeting the virgin.

He goes around Tepeyac Hill, but the woman comes down

from the top of the hill and cuts him off.

Juan Diego explains why he is in a hurry.

But the woman tells him to have no more fear,

that she holds him in the fold of her mantle

and in the cradle of her arms,

and she assures him that his uncle is well.

narrator: Juan Diego asks her to honor him

but letting him be her messenger.

Our Lady of Guadalupe now instructs him

to climb to the top of Tepeyac Hill

and gather up in his tilma all the flowers he finds.

Upon reaching the summit, Juan Diego is amazed

to find extraordinary flowers in full bloom.

♪

These flowers would be the sign for the bishop.

♪

[sweeping music]

♪

narrator: This remarkable image--

inexplicable in its style, luminous colors, and imagery--

would change the course of history

for the entire continent.

[lively piano music]

♪

Today that sacred house asked for by the Virgin

is now the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe,

the most visited Catholic shrine in the world.

Each year, millions of pilgrims come

to celebrate their faith

and the miraculous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

narrator: The shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe

is a source of inspiration for the faithful.

They come here to find the comfort of their mother

and to pray for her intercession.

- A lot of the pilgrimages that I've done,

a lot of the people are from the United States.

They don't have any Latino heritage or anything.

But they've always wanted to go,

and the blessings that they receive--

I've seen people start to pray the rosary again.

People have gone to confession for the first time in many years

when they've gone to the shrine.

Spiritual direction, the healing of marriages,

reconciliations between family members and so forth.

It's really a tremendous blessing

that takes place there,

and I think that Our Lady's presence in that tilma,

still to this day, has a lot to do with that.

- The first time I went

to the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe

and approached the tilma,

I knew I was entering into the presence

of something sacred and holy.

The supernatural presence of the icon

made an impression on me.

I was immediately touched by the devotion of the people.

I mean, it was an incredible experience

of their tenderness

and their approach to Mary as their mother.

And from that moment on,

I've had a loving experience of Mary.

narrator: The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe

holds many unsolved mysteries.

The first mystery is its very existence.

A 1946 study by the National Autonomous University of Mexico

confirmed that the tilma is made of ixtle,

or izote agave fibers from the cactus plant.

- I think it's very important

to examine miracles in a scientific way

and to look for an explanation in the natural world,

which everybody tends to do and wants to do,

and then we discover a rather miraculous things

that can't be answered from ordinary experience.

narrator: In the 18th century,

a scientist named Dr. Bartolache

commissioned the creation of two works

similar to the Guadalupe image.

These paintings were also created on agave cloth

and were placed in locations

around the Basilica of Guadalupe.

narrator: The survival of the tilma

is even more amazing when one considers

that it was left completely unprotected

for more than a century.

[solemn flute music]

narrator: Many aspects of the image

defy logic and science.

The tilma has a seam running down its center

rendering the cloth a poor canvas choice.

But researchers are astonished to discover

that the very flaws of the tilma's fabric

reveal the genius of the image.

narrator: The tilma also lacks any preparation or imprimatura,

a necessary step when painting on fabric.

narrator: The lack of preparation is made clear

by a startling realization.

The same image appears on both the front and back

of Juan Diego's tilma.

narrator: In 1795,

an accident nearly destroys the tilma.

A worker cleaning the glass encasement

clumsily spills nitric acid on the image.

narrator: Among the many wonders

of the Guadalupe apparition are new discoveries being made

into the images present in her eyes.

José Aste Tonsmann is a Peruvian engineer

and an expert in digital image processing.

In the late 1970s,

he began applying his studies to the tilma.

narrator: In the human eye,

the cornea reflects the image in front of us.

Both eyes will show the same image

but different sizes.

This phenomenon is precisely what Tonsmann found

when magnifying both eyes.

Each eye contained mirror images of the same scene.

narrator: The incredible devotion

inspired by Our Lady of Guadalupe

and her miraculous image

can be traced back to the very first years

following her apparition to Saint Juan Diego.

Despite ongoing tension

with the Spanish colonial government,

the apparition triggers one of the greatest conversions

to the Catholic faith in history.

- This marks a difference in the type of evangelization

between the New World and the Old World.

What had been the typical model was,

one baptized the prince or the king or the queen,

and the followers followed his decision

as to the religion of the kingdom.

But in The New World, what happened

with Juan Diego and Our Lady of Guadalupe

was a conversion beginning among the people

that then filtered up

instead of a conversion at the top

which filtered down.

narrator: The native people are drawn

by Juan Diego's powerful encounter

with Our Lady of Guadalupe,

but they are also amazed by an image

that reveals the Christian faith

through symbols they could understand.

In Aztec society, codices, or pictorial manuscripts,

were an essential means of communication.

narrator: The image also contained symbolism

that would transform the worldview

of the indigenous people.

Their new understanding of God and of love

would help eliminate the long-standing practice

of human sacrifice.

narrator: Like European iconography,

Our Lady of Guadalupe is standing on the moon,

but for the indigenous mind,

the moon represented the home of the omnipotent God.

narrator: The many symbols

in the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe

led to millions of conversions.

This powerful symbolism was further strengthened

by a major festival called Panquetzaliztli,

celebrated around the winter solstice,

which, in the Julian calendar, took place on December 12th,

the same date as the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

- With Our Lady of Guadalupe, what we find

is actually the transformation of a culture

according to new norms

validating its own heritage and its own history.

Good example of this can be seen in Mexico in 1544,

when Mexico experienced

one of the worst droughts in its history.

Typically, the Aztecs responded to such a situation

by the massive sacrifice of many young children.

After Our Lady of Guadalupe in 1544,

there was a massive pilgrimage of young children

to the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe,

so the transformation

from a culture, we might say, of death

to a culture of life.

narrator: Our Lady of Guadalupe is often called La Morenita,

a reference to her darkened complexion

that makes her the perfect symbol of a mixed people.

- Saint John Paul II referred to Our Lady of Guadalupe

as the perfect model of enculturation.

This means that she comes to the indigenous people

in their own customs and imagery.

And, in fact, in her face, the mestiza face,

they see in her an affirmation of their human dignity,

their human worth,

and of course the response is overwhelming.

narrator: Even during the Mexican Revolution of 1910,

Emiliano Zapata and his troops entered Mexico City

carrying a banner of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Despite Mexico's Catholic identity

and the Guadalupan devotion,

church state tensions reach a peak during the 1920s.

In an effort to suppress the faith of Mexico's citizens,

the government set out to destroy

the church's most important symbol.

narrator: In 1921, an agent working for the government

places a bomb hidden in a basket of flowers

directly under the tilma.

narrator: In the following years,

the persecution of Catholics only increases.

This leads to a rebellion

against the repressive government

known as the Cristero War.

These Catholic freedom fighters choose Our Lady of Guadalupe

as their patron and their inspiration.

[lively music]

narrator: Many victims of the Cristero war

flee to the United States.

This mass immigration serves

to increase the already budding devotion

to Our Lady of Guadalupe outside Mexico's borders.

- The Cristero imprint on Mexicans

coming to the United States was rather large,

because a lot of the people who were exiled from Mexico

during the Cristero period came to Los Angeles,

and they wore it on their shirtsleeves.

That was--if you were Mexican, you were a Guadalupano.

And so the devotion has been very strong.

It's spread now throughout the United States.

narrator: In 1941, delegates from the 20 American republics

came to the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City

to pray for peace

amidst the horrors of the Second World War.

Archbishop John Cantwell of Los Angeles

led a delegation from the United States.

The Mexican church was so grateful

for Archbishop Cantwell's presence and support

that they gifted the Los Angeles archdiocese

with a relic of Saint Juan Diego's miraculous tilma.

To this day, it remains the only such relic

in the United States.

In recent years,

under the auspices of the Knights of Columbus,

the relic has passed through numerous American cities

and been venerated at large Guadalupan celebrations

in both Phoenix and Los Angeles.

- [singing in Italian]

♪

n- In speaking of a New World, what we're really talking about

is the unity of different peoples and different cultures

to create something that did not exist before.

In the United States, for example,

our country is a great melting pot

of many immigrant groups, of many ethnicities,

of many religious traditions

coming together to forge a new society.

This is primarily the message of Our Lady of Guadalupe,

that regardless of differences,

there is a basic unity of human dignity

and a respect for different cultures.

And if we maintain that,

we can actually create something new.

♪

- I have my passion for surfing,

and I have my passion for Our Lady,

especially Our Lady of Guadalupe.

When I was a young man, I was raised

in a very difficult, tumultuous family setting,

and I really bit onto the culture

and the bad things of the culture.

So I got involved with a lot of drugs and lot of promiscuity.

It was after reading a book about the Blessed Virgin Mary

that I really got what I call the divine 2x4 experience.

God just hammered me with the truth,

and I fell madly in love with him and with Our Lady

and with the Catholic Church.

I do consider myself a Guadalupano.

She's my mother, and I feel united with those

that I don't even speak their same language.

A mother always unites her children,

and that's a big part, I think, of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

[soft guitar music]

♪

[bold cello intro]

♪

[upbeat string music]

narrator: The spread of devotion

to our Lady of Guadalupe

across the American continent is captured

in this beautiful and idyllic shrine dedicated in her name.

La Crosse, Wisconsin, is a far cry

from bustling Mexico City, but it is here

that a new generation of Guadalupanos is being formed.

- Thank you very much.

- Thank you.

- After the synod on America, the church in America,

in which Saint John Paul II underlined so powerfully

the importance of Our Lady of Guadalupe

for the living of the faith in the whole continent:

North America, Central America, South America.

Then I understood that it should be a shrine to Our Lady

under her title Our Lady of Guadalupe.

- We have people coming from everywhere.

I've had people from as far away as China.

The ones that are always the most interesting

are the ones who simply see the roadside sign

and just come in.

♪

- What I hear most of all from the pilgrims

is that when they come here,

the minute they come up on the grounds,

they have a sense of peace, and they're inspired to pray.

The heart of the message is very simple,

that she wants to show to her children

God's love for them.

♪

- I've always been infatuated with the story

of Our Lady of Guadalupe and her message

and Saint Juan Diego,

and we've always tried to share that with our children,

and we happened to kind of just stumble upon it.

Then we found out they were building this church,

so we've kept coming now for the last eight or nine years.

- I came from California, from San Diego,

to commemorate this shrine,

because she is Our Lady of the Americas,

and she's really a lady for all of us,

for those from the tip of Argentina

all the way up to the United States and Canada.

So we look to her for guidance,

for inspiration in our daily lives.

narrator: The shrine in La Crosse

has opened new hearts to the message of Guadalupe

and has united people of all ethnic backgrounds

in their common faith.

- I can speak to Our Lady of Guadalupe's effect

in the local community and with the people who come here.

It's a community of believers,

and I think that the propagation

of devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe

beyond the Hispanic community

will simply bring more understanding

that we're all in this together.

The whole thing initially was funded

by well-meaning Anglos, non-Hispanics

who simply caught the message of what the Pope was saying

and what the bishop, now Cardinal Burke, was saying

and went with it.

It's--you have to see it

to even believe this could happen.

narrator: As patroness of the Americas,

our Lady of Guadalupe also inspires Canadians.

And in a special way, she speaks

to the First Nations communities.

- When I read that story

and how, as early as December 1531,

when Our Lady appeared to an indigenous person in Mexico,

speaking his language and taking, in fact,

a complexion of indigenous children,

I was just overwhelmed and deeply touched.

First of all, she takes the complexion of our people

and how she knew of the particular distress

that the people were in,

how they were treated less than human

but how she came to raise their dignity.

And when you stop and think,

when Our Lady appeared to Saint Juan Diego,

at the time, his age was 57 years old.

And so she appears to elders,

which elevates, then, the significance of elders

in all our cultures as indigenous peoples.

narrator: Inspired by the mestiza face of Our Lady,

Nicholas began touring First Nation communities

with the Guadalupe image,

sharing Juan Diego's encounter and example

of an enculturated evangelization

that respects indigenous culture and experience.

- When I first saw the missionary image

of Our Lady of Guadalupe which is Canadian,

I fell in love with her immediately,

but I was overcome by the fact

that this was the face of Our Lady,

of the mother of Jesus.

And the only place in the world

where she has left behind her face was in Mexico.

Each summer, I bring the missionary image

of Our Lady of Guadalupe to this area of New Brunswick

and go around to not only First Nation communities

but non-native communities as well

to actually share the story.

And so when you hear words of people

who are the walking wounded

and then later on you see them rejoice,

they say, "Thank you very much

for bringing the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe to us."

And there are many, many stories

over this past eight years

that I've taken the image around

where she has brought great comfort to people.

[lively piano music]

- The fact that Our Lady of Guadalupe

communicates with a poor person like Juan Diego

is a message of what we call now option for the poor,

which Pope Francis is talking about all the time.

Our church must be a church of the poor for the poor,

evangelical poverty of simplicity and of humility

and that is a very strong message for today.

narrator: While devotion to Guadalupe

remains most widespread in the Western Hemisphere,

it is increasingly a global phenomenon.

At the National Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Manila,

Filipino Catholics continue a centuries-long tradition.

- Our Lady of Guadalupe

has a great impact on the Filipinos.

The devotion was brought in from Mexico

through Spanish missionaries and such that by 1935,

the Holy Father Pius XI, at that time,

decided to declare Our Lady of Guadalupe

as the patroness of the Philippines.

There are two things that were originally, I think,

was the inspiration for the people to be in love

with Our Lady of Guadalupe.

One is the color.

The color of the Blessed Mother Guadalupe is an Indio,

and we were called Indios by the Spaniards.

The second is that the one to whom he appeared

was also an Indio, Juan Diego.

I think that the impact of the devotion to Our Lady

is not only on families but all society in general.

- Until recently, Our Lady of Guadalupe

has been seen almost exclusively

as a Mexican phenomenon

or a Latin American Hispanic phenomenon,

but we need to open our horizon a bit.

We have to understand

that she is the patroness of the Philippines,

and so she reaches the hearts of millions of Asians.

We have to remember that at the time

of the appearance of Our Lady of Guadalupe,

New Spain existed

throughout the western part of the United States,

and so she is an apparition for the United States

as well as for Mexico.

- Our Lady of Guadalupe is the mother of the Sisters of Life.

We process to her every night at the end of our night prayer,

throughout our convent, singing the "Salve Regina,"

acknowledging her as our mother.

Unlike her other apparitions,

there's nothing like the Guadalupe apparition,

because when she came here, she came simply as a mother.

She didn't exhort the people to prayer, to conversion,

to fasting.

That wasn't her message to these people.

Her message was a message of love.

She came with the assurances of love,

that "I am here, I am your mother."

- In my confessional in Philadelphia--

I hear confessions every Sunday night,

and right outside my confessional

is a beautiful mosaic of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

I can see through the door the number of people

who stop at the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe

and pray as they prepare for confession,

and I think that it's kind of symbolic

of the role of Our Lady of Guadalupe

leading us further into our Christian life

day by day,

asking us for constant transformation, change,

and conversion.

[dramatic music]

- Our Lady of Guadalupe has been referred to

as the Mother of the Civilization of Love.

So what is the motherly message of our Our Lady of Guadalupe?

It is one of concern, of compassion, of love

for all members of society,

even the poorest, even the outcast.

And so if the person is created out of love for love,

only a civilization of love is worthy of human dignity.

And this is fundamentally the message

of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

♪

narrator: For almost five centuries,

Our Lady of Guadalupe has united bitter enemies,

endured as a symbol of hope,

and defied scientific explanation,

becoming the patroness of the Americas.

Today her presence is as real as it was in 1531,

when Juan Diego first walked up Tepeyac Hill

and encountered the woman millions would come to call

"Our Mother."