December — Saint of the Day
Basílica de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe
Tepeyac, Mexico City
Our Lady of Guadalupe (feast December 12).
In December 1531, Our Lady appeared to St. Juan Diego on this hill of Tepeyac, leaving her miraculous image on his tilma. Four centuries later she watched over the Cristeros: in 1921 a bomb exploded at the foot of that same tilma — the image untouched, the twisted crucifix still venerated as the "Santo Cristo del Atentado." During the war the tilma itself was hidden away for safekeeping, and the old basilica is now the Templo Expiatorio a Cristo Rey.