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The Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe at 1170 N. River Road in Des Plaines is the most visited monument of its kind in the United States. Each year on Dec. 12, when the Roman Catholic Church celebrates the Feast Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, hundreds of thousands of people travel to the site — on foot, by horse, via semitrucks, on bicycles or as part of a race — to pray, light candles, place flowers and offer their gratitude to her.

Known as the patron saint of the Americas, the religious icon has traditionally been admired by the people of Mexico, where her image was first seen in 1531. But, in recent years, her image and symbolism have been embraced by other ethnicities and non-Catholics too.

Here’s a look at the history of one of the world’s most famous apparitions and tips on how to visit the shrine for this celebration.

Our Lady of Guadalupe origin

Rafaela Pulido and her son Diego Francisco, 5, of Veracruz, Mexico, look upon a rendition of Juan Diego at the Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico on July 25, 2002. (John Moore/AP)
Feathered Aztec dancers perform before Pope John Paul II during the canonization ceremony of Juan Diego, the first Indian saint in the Americas, at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe on July 31, 2002, in Mexico City. (Erich Schlegel/The Dallas Morning News)
Pope Francis officiates a Mass in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, near the hills where, according to Catholic belief, the Virgin Mary appeared before Juan Diego, a Mexican indigenous peasant, in 1531. (Gabriel Bouys/Getty-AFP)

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Though some question its authenticity, the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe was written in Nahuatl, a native language, some time after 1556 by a scholar named Antonio Valeriano. In short, here’s what it says:

On a hill called Tepeyac near Mexico City, the Virgin Mary appeared several times in 1531, to a poor, Christian convert named Juan Diego. She asked Diego to visit the archbishop of Mexico City and ask him to build a shrine to her on the site.

The archbishop didn’t believe Diego’s story about the woman’s apparition and refused his request.

Several days later, Diego returned to Tepeyac, where the Virgin Mary told him to climb to the top of the hill and gather flowers to take to the archbishop as a sign of her presence. There, Diego found Castilian roses — not common to Mexico — in bloom during the winter. He picked the out-of-season flowers and gathered them in his cloak, or tilma.

Upon presenting the roses to the archbishop, both men discovered a colorful imprint of the Virgin Mary upon Diego’s tilma. The image, named Our Lady of Guadalupe, is considered one of the most sacred objects in Mexico and has been preserved for almost 500 years.

Pope John Paul II — who in 1979 became the first pontiff to visit Mexico — beatified then canonized Diego as a saint. On Jan. 23, 1999, during the pope’s fourth visit to Mexico, he announced that Catholic churches throughout the Americas would celebrate the Virgin Mary’s feast day, on Dec. 12.

The image explained


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