The evangelization of New Spain, as Mexico was once called, did not come easy for the first missionaries. They encountered, among the Aztecs at least, a religion of human sacrifice, and among other peoples a resistance that went as far as the martyrdom of Christian converts. It took the appearance of the Blessed Virgin Mary to a humble native American to turn the tide. What followed was the conversion of 8 million native Americans to the Catholic faith in only 7 years, a number equivalent to 3000 a day. Thus God unleashed through Mary a New Pentecost that imitated the original one, for "three thousand were converted that day" (Acts 2:41).

The Arrival of the Spanish

Protomartyrs of the Americas

Information on the Image

Blessed Juan Diego

Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe