On Dec. 9, Roman Catholics celebrate St. Juan Diego, the indigenous Mexican Catholic convert whose encounter with the Virgin Mary began the Church's devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe.
In 1474, 50 years before receiving the name Juan Diego at his baptism, a boy named Cuauhtlatoatzin – "singing eagle" – was born in the Anahuac Valley of present-day Mexico. Though raised according to the Aztec pagan religion and culture, he showed an unusual and mystical sense of life even before hearing the Gospel from Franciscan missionaries.
In 1524, Cuauhtlatoatzin and his wife converted and entered the Catholic Church. The farmer now known as Juan Diego was committed to his faith, often walking long distances to receive religious instruction. In 1531, he would be the recipient of a world-changing miracle.
On Dec. 9, Juan Diego was hurrying to Mass to celebrate the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. But the woman he was heading to church to celebrate, came to him instead.
In the native Aztec dialect, the radiant woman announced herself as the "ever-perfect holy Mary, who has the honor to be the mother of the true God."
"I am your compassionate Mother, yours and that of all the people that live together in this land," she continued, "and also of all the other various lineages of men."
She asked Juan Diego to make a request of the local bishop. "I want very much that they build my sacred little house here"– a house dedicated to her son Jesus Christ, on the site of a former pagan temple, that would "show him" to all Mexicans and "exalt him" throughout the world.
She was asking a great deal of a native farmer. Not surprisingly, his bold request met with skepticism from Bishop Juan de Zumárraga. But Juan Diego said he would produce proof of the apparition, after he finished tending to his uncle whose death seemed imminent.
Making his way to church on Dec. 12, to summon a priest for his uncle, Juan Diego again encountered the Blessed Virgin. She promised to cure his uncle and give him a sign to display for the bishop. On the hill where they had first met he would find roses and other flowers, though it was winter.
Doing as she asked, he found the flowers and brought them back to her. The Virgin Mary then placed the flowers inside his tilma, the traditional garment he had been wearing. She told him not to unwrap the tilma containing the flowers, until he had reached the bishop.
When he did, Bishop Zumárraga had his own encounter with Our Lady of Guadalupe – through the image of her that he found miraculously imprinted on the flower-filled tilma. The Mexico City basilica that now houses the tilma has become, by some estimates, the world's most-visited Catholic shrine.
The miracle that brought the Gospel to millions of Mexicans also served to deepen Juan Diego's own spiritual life. For many years after the experience, he lived a solitary life of prayer and work in a hermitage near the church where the image was first displayed. Pilgrims had already begun flocking to the site by the time he died on Dec. 9, 1548, the anniversary of the first apparition.
Blessed John Paul II beatified St. Juan Diego in 1990, and canonized him in 2002.
— Catholic News Agency
St. Lucy is a virgin and martyr of Syracuse in Sicily, whose feast is celebrated on Dec. 13.
According to tradition, St. Lucy was born to rich and noble parents in the year 283.
Her father was of Roman origin, but his early death left her dependent upon her mother, whose name, Eutychia, seems to indicate that she was of Greek heritage.
Like so many of the early martyrs, Lucy had consecrated her virginity to God, and she hoped to devote all her worldly goods to the service of the poor.
Her mother arranged a marriage for her, but for three years she managed to postpone the marriage. Lucy prayed at the tomb of St. Agatha to change her mother’s mind about her faith. As a result, her mother's long haemorrhagic illness was cured, and she consented to Lucy's desire to live for God.
St. Lucy’s rejected bridegroom, Paschasius, denounced Lucy as a Christian. The governor planned to force her into prostitution, but when guards went to fetch her, they could not move her even when they hitched her to a team of oxen. The governor ordered her to be killed instead.
After a gruesome torture that included having her eyes torn out, she was surrounded by bundles of wood that were set afire, but the fire quickly died out. She prophesied against her persecutors, and she was then executed by being stabbed to death with a dagger.
Legend says her eyesight was restored before her death. This and the meaning of her name led to her patronage with eyes; the blind, eye trouble, and other eye ailments.
— Catholic News Agency
Detail of a stained glass window depicting St. Lucy at Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Monroe, N.C.