Ten years after the conquest of Mexico by the Spanish the Virgin Mary appeared to a recent convert, Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, a Chichimec peasant. She spoke in his native language, Nahuatl, not in the Spanish of the missionaries. She dressed in the indigenous clothes he would be familiar with. She had the skin tones and the appearance of a native of the Americas. This should not surprise us since it testifies to the reality of the Incarnation. We profess that Jesus “was like us in all things, but sin.” Mary looking like a Mexican woman expresses how profound is the mystery of God’s entry into human life. True mystery is not found in a foreign language or elaborate ceremony but in another human being.
