MEXICO CITY (Zenit.org): In celebration of December 12’s feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the shrine that houses the miraculous image of Mary received more than 6 million pilgrims.
Annually, this basilica in Mexico City receives an average of 22 million.
It is estimated that on December 12, an average of 95,000 pilgrims entered the basilica every hour.
They had to be content with spending just a few seconds under the miraculous cape where 479 years ago the image of the Virgin was imprinted, after the first bishop of Mexico City, Franciscan Friar Juan de Zumarraga, asked Juan Diego for a sign that his visions were true.
Pope Benedict XVI in Rome also remembered the feast day. After praying the midday Angelus with pilgrims gathered in St Peter’s Square, the Holy Father greeted Spanish-speakers.
He expressed his hopes that “the loving intercession of Holy Mary, who, as Our Lady of Guadalupe is fervently invoked as Mother by the men and women of the Mexican people and of Latin America, might inspire this time of joy and hope and nourish the imperative work of charity with the neediest”.
Also on December 12, a replica of the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe was enthroned in Turin and the two cities were twinned. Turin is the city where the Shroud of Turin is kept.
The Shroud and the tilma of Guadalupe are similar in that neither depiction is considered the work of an artist, but rather images created miraculously.
