January — Saint of the Day
Templo de San Francisco
Centro Histórico, Mexico City
St. Francis of Assisi (feast October 4); the Twelve Apostles of Mexico (arrived 1524).
The Convento Grande de San Francisco — the great Franciscan mother house of Mexico City, founded in the 1520s by the Twelve Apostles of Mexico, from which the evangelization of New Spain radiated. Its gilded retablo keeps Our Lady of Guadalupe at its heart, watched over by the sons of St. Francis. Four centuries after these friars planted the faith in Mexican soil, their heirs would water it with their blood as Cristeros.