One chilly morning in December 1531, a middle-aged farmworker set off across a hillside on his way to serve at Mass in a nearby village.

But what happened when he reached the top of the hill changed his life, and that place, forever...and this month, almost 500 years later, an astonishing six million people are expected to gather there to remember the man and what happened to him – and to revere the precious memento of the events that he witnessed.

What happened on that hill all those years ago was the apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe.  The man to whom she appeared, Juan Diego, is now St Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, canonised by John Paul II in 2002.  And the place where the apparitions took place, and which is today the busiest site of Catholic pilgrimage anywhere in the world, lies in the north of one of the world’s biggest conurbations, Mexico City.

The Shrine is the busiest site of Catholic pilgrimage anywhere in the worldTo reach the most famous shrine in Latin America, I took the metro from central Mexico City.  In Juan Diego’s day the place where the Virgin appeared was a rural idyll outside the town itself – today, in this vast metropolis of 21 million people, it’s been swallowed up into the hectic sprawl of concrete buildings, traffic-choked roads, and market stalls.  As befits its vastness and significance, the shrine even has its own tube stop – La Villa Basilica on Line 6.  

Emerging from the station, you’re immediately pulled into the world of the Virgin.  Every street pedlar is selling religious paraphernalia; every market stall is groaning with the iconic image of the Virgin, made when – a few days after her first appearance – she appeared again, and told Diego to gather up roses in his cloak, and to take them to the bishop.  When he did this, he found the image of Mary imprinted onto the cloth – and that’s the image that is everywhere on the streets around the shrine of Guadalupe.

The cloak carries the miraculously-produced impression of the Virgin Mary.
There’s certainly no need to ask where the shrine is, because every person in sight is headed in the same direction, some even walking on their knees.  Many have babies, because it’s a Mexican tradition to bring them to be baptised here (there’s a full-time baptismal chapel on the site); others have candles to leave at the shrine, flowers, and rosaries.  There are some western and American tourists, but – on the whole – the visitors to the shrine here are Mexicans.  The Virgin of Guadalupe is, after all, their country’s patron saint.  The area is packed with pilgrims year-round, but it’s December when it reaches its zenith: St Juan’s feast day, on December 9, always sees the area crammed with people – and three days later, on the feast of the Virgin herself on December 12, the crowds reach into the millions.  Last year saw a record 6.1 million pilgrims...and this year, the city authorities say there could be just as many.

They call the place a shrine, but the truth is that it’s a town within a city, with an enormous flag-stoned plaza (one of the largest outdoor spaces in the world) and a vast, modern, tent-like cathedral which can hold an extraordinary, but in the context of visitor figures here never enough, 20,000 people.  Dotted around the plaza are many other chapels: this is a town made up of churches of all kinds, from the Capuchin chapel to the baptism church to the Chapel of Tepeyac, which stands on the site of an ancient Aztec temple.  

And there’s plenty more besides: as well as the numerous churches and chapels, the shrine has a museum, various shops, a first aid centre, gardens, and even a mini police station.  

Textile experts have mused on how an image created in 1531 can possibly have survived so long intact, despite being exposed to dust, heat, humidity and even – in the 1920s – a bomb that was flung at itFirst stop for almost every visitor to the shrine is the modern basilica, which is built in the round and festooned with flags from all the nations of the world. Come here anytime of day and you will invariably find Mass in progress.  But it’s behind the main altar, high up on the wall, that the object of most visitors’ fascination and prayer is to be found: that cloak, which carries the miraculously-produced impression of the Virgin Mary.  

Today that image is the most ubiquitous picture in the whole of Mexico: but despite seeing it on virtually every street corner across the country, pilgrims come here to stand before the original.  In fact standing before it, given the pressure of visitors, is not allowed: to view the cloak, which is kept behind glass high on the basilica wall, pilgrims must travel on a slow-moving walkway, to prevent anyone from hogging the view.  

Like the Shroud of Turin, the cloak of Guadalupe has in recent years been subjected to various scientific tests to check its authenticity: and like the shroud, it keeps the secret of exactly how it was created, to itself.  Infrared ray tests in the 1980s found that the picture had been painted in one step, with no sketches or corrections and no paintbrush strokes; and other, earlier, checks had already discovered that the materials used to colour the image were not from any known source.  

Textile experts have mused on how an image created in 1531 can possibly have survived so long intact, despite being exposed to dust, heat, humidity and even – in the 1920s – a bomb that was flung at it.  Other investigations have found that an image reflected in Our Lady’s eyes is that of Juan Diego himself; and that there is no human explanation for how an image of this quality could have been reproduced on a peasant’s cloak in the 16th century.

There is no human explanation for how an image of this quality could have been reproduced on a peasant’s cloak in the 16th century.When you’ve marvelled over Diego’s cloak, and hopped on and off the moving walkway at least two or three times, the next place to head for is up the hillside, to the site of the apparition itself.  The walk takes around 15 minutes: it’s a steep path, but Mexico City’s climate is a temperate one, and chances are that the sun will be out and you’ll be rewarded as you climb with views across the sea of rooftops, over to the high-rise blocks of the financial district of Polanco.  

At the very top of the hill is the Capilla de las Rosas, which marks the spot where Diego collected the miraculous roses around which he wrapped his cloak.  As with everywhere in this city, the chapel and the viewing area at the top are constantly swirling with people: but there’s a sense of awe, and a hush, near the altar.  Something extraordinary happened here almost half a millennium ago: something that even in our high-tech age, we can’t explain.  Down the centuries since, hundreds of millions of people have come to this spot to worship, to ponder and to pray: and the fact that they come still, and in the vast numbers that they do, is testimony to the fact that faith is alive and well – and that here on this Mexican hillside, the spirit of Mary herself is never far away.