read aloud
In All Saints we have selected an intimate space in the church where we have placed a statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe. This may be for you a place for private prayer and meditation. There you may also offer prayers for physical and spiritual wholeness and healing, for you and your loved ones.

In 2012, the statue of St. Mary was blessed and placed in said place by the Hispanic members of the congregation. This statue is devoted to Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patron saint of Mexico and the continental Americas.

Traditions and beliefs hold that in December, 1531, Juan Diego, a recently converted Aztec peasant, had a vision of a young woman on a Tepeyac desert slope while on the way to church. The lady in the vision asked him to build a church where they stood on the hill. After receiving this information, the Bishop ask for proof. Later as Juan Diego again crossed the hill, the vision reappeared and reminded him of the request. She instructed him to go to the hilltop and there take the roses which he put in his cloak and took to the Bishop. Upon opening his cloak before the Bishop, the flowers fell to the floor and in their place was the Virgin of Guadalupe imprinted on the fabric. There have been many claims of miracles associated with the image throughout history.

A shrine to the Virgin has existed on the site since at least 1556 when the archbishop of New Spain promoted devotion to the image of Mary at a chapel in Tepeyac. The image was described by an English prisoner in Mexico City in 1568, and by the end of the 16th century Our Lady of Guadalupe formed part of a wide network of shrines to the Virgin throughout Mexico. The story of Mary's appearance to Juan Diego was codified in the work of Miguel Sánchez in 1648, and an account in the indigenous language (Nahuatl) was published in 1649 and widely accepted as accurate.