At dawn on December 9, 1531, An Indian convert, Juan Diego was going to Tlatelolco to attend Mass. As he was passing the foot of Tepeyac Hill, he saw a brilliant light on the summit and heard strains of celestial music. Filled with wonderment he stood still. Then he heard a feminine voice asking him to ascend. When he reached the top, he saw the Blessed Virgin Mary standing in the heavenly splendor. The beauty of her youthful countenance and her look of loving kindness filled Juan Diego with unspeakable happiness as he listened to the words which she spoke to him in his Indian language. She told him that she was the Immaculate Virgin Mary, mother of the true God, and made known to him her desire that a shrine be built there where she could manifest her love, her compassion, her succor, and protection. “For I am a merciful Mother”, she said, “to you and to all your fellow men on this earth who love me and trust me and invoked my help. Therefore, go to the dwelling of the Bishop of Mexico and say that I, the Virgin Mary, sent you to make known to him my great desire.”The bishop was reluctant to believe the Mexican’s story. So, he returned to Tepeyac Hill, found the Blessed Virgin waiting for him, and told her of his failure.She bade him go back again. The bishop then requested that the Lady give him a sign. Juan reported this to her, and she promised to grant his petition the following morning. But Juan was prevented from coming by the sudden illness of his uncle, Juan Bernardino.Two days later, on December 12, when he was going to the Tlatelolco church by way of Tepeyac to bring a priest to his dying relative, the Blessed Virgin came down the hill to meet him. She listened to Juan’s excuse for not having come the day before. When he finished speaking, she said, “There is nothing you need to fear. Do not be anxious about this illness nor about any other illness or affliction. Am I not here beside you, your merciful mother? Am I, not your hope and salvation? What more do you need? And even as Our Lady spoke, she appeared to Juan Bernardino and cured him.(Early on the same day of December 12, she had also appeared to Juan’s uncle, a fifty-seven-yearold widow, Juan Bernardino. She had restored him to health just as she told Juan Diego. Both Juan Bernardino and Juan Diego were numbered among the first natives to renounce their pagan religion. They were baptized in 1525, only four years after the Spanish conquest.)Having heard these words, he rejoiced and begged her to give him the sign he was to take to the bishop. She bade him climb to the top of the hill where he had seen her and spoken with her on three occasions. She said he would find many flowers blooming there which he was to cut and bring to her. Juan Diego did as he was told although on this stony summit, no flowers had ever bloomed before, but when he reached the top, he found a miraculous garden of Castilian roses of exquisite fragrance. He gathered them as our Lady had asked and took them to her. She arranged them in his mantle, telling him to take them to the bishop, that it was the sign that would persuade him to carry out her wishes.When Juan Diego, radiantly happy, stood before Bishop Fray Juan de Zumarraga and told him of his fourth encounter with the Blessed Virgin, he opened his mantle to show him the sign, and the flowers cascaded to the floor. To the astonishment of the bishop and his companions, there appeared the Virgin Mary’s portrait marvelously painted in the most exquisite colors; upon the coarse fabric of the Indian’s mantle, just as he had described her previously. Seeing the sign, he had asked for, and beholding the miraculous imprint of our Lady’s image on the tilma, the bishop knelt and wept as he prayed for forgiveness for having doubted her and her messenger, Juan Diego.In two weeks, an adobe chapel was built to house the tilma for veneration. It was dedicated by Bishop Zumarraga on December 26, 1531. Later the Church proclaimed Our Lady under the title of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patroness of all the Americas; and in 1935, officially proclaimed as the Patroness of the Philippines Islands.

Juan Bernardino told his nephew that the Blessed Virgin ordered him to relate to the bishop in what miraculous manner she had cured him and also to inform him that her precious image would crush the serpent. In other words, it would stamp out the idolatrous religion of the pagan Mexicans.The bishop did not know the Indian language and heard him say Santa Maria Coatlaxopeuh, which sounded like Santa Maria de Guadalupe. As there was a famous shrine by that name in Spain, he thought that for some unknown reason, she had chosen the same name for her Mexican shrine; therefore, by this title, she has been venerated for over four centuries.

The mantle or tilma on which the portrait of the Blessed Virgin is imprinted is hand-woven from the fibers of the maguey cactus, a fabric of which the ordinary lifespan is twenty years. It is six and a half feet long by forty-two inches wide with a seam running down the middle.The tilma shows Mary as the God-bearer - she is pregnant with her Divine Son. Since the time the tilma was first impressed with a picture of the Mother of God, it has been subject to a variety of environmental hazards including smoke from fires and candles, water from floods and torrential downpours, and in 1921, a bomb that was planted by anti-clerical forces on an altar under it. There 

was also a cast-iron cross next to the tilma and when the bomb exploded, the cross was twisted out of shape, the marble altar rail was heavily damaged but the tilma was untouched! Indeed, no one was injured in the Church despite the damage that occurred to a large part of the altar structure.In 1977, the tilma was examined using infrared photography and digital enhancement techniques. Unlike any painting, the tilma shows no sketching or any sign of outline drawn to permit an artist to produce a painting. Further, the very method used to create the image is still unknown. The image is inexplicable in its longevity and method of production. It can be seen today in a large cathedral built to house up to ten thousand worshipers. It is, by far, the most popular religious pilgrimage site in the Western Hemisphere.

The Our Lady of Guadalupe School, Inc. where it stands right now is an incarnation of God’s providence and the combined efforts of all those who joined hands to stabilize the school.The land where OLGS is built was formerly owned by Don Benito Vergara and Dona Margarita Laxamana Vergara, natives of Pampanga. At first, the couple put up a barn in it to store their harvested ‘Palay’ but later converted it into a Sacred Heart Center for civic and religious activities in Mexico and a place for those who wanted to freely learn sewing, cross-stitching, and the like. Years passed, and the Vergara sisters converted the place into a “Mexico Marian School” in response to a need to have a Catholic school for the children of Mexico.The middle of the 1980s was a time of economic slump and political unrest in the Philippines which became worst when Senator Benigno Aquino Jr. was assassinated. This situation also affected the Marian School and a decision to close it in 1986 was made.The Vergara sisters offered the administration of the school to their relative, Mother Mary Therese Laxamana Vicente, the foundress of the Sisters of the Holy Face of Jesus (HFJ). But it was only in 1991 that Mother Therese finally agreed. Through the mediation of Archbishop Paciano B. Aniceto D.D. (the Archbishop of San Fernando Pampanga) an absolute donation, with an accompanying promise to continue the Catholic education in the area, was made by the Vergara Sisters. Hence, in Mexico, Pampanga became the first mission of the congregation outside he Archdiocese of Manila. On February 26, 1992, the Marian school was renamed “Our Lady of Guadalupe School, Inc.” and new buildings and facilities were eventually added. In time, OLGS flourished with an increasing student population, improvements in facilities, and higher levels of education and has merited the recognition of the Department of Education. Collaborating with them led to the refinement and improvement of the school as they conducted their surveys and evaluation regularly.When K to 12 education system was approved in 2013, OLGS as well as the people of Pampanga was quite apprehensive knowing that this would entail loads of restructuring of the 

already familiar educational system and there would be great adjustments on the part of the students. But after understanding this new system of education as improving the quality of education and not merely adding years to the grade school, it was gradually adapted with the guidance of DepEd. The new direction which OLGS has courageously traversed, though it has created a major shift and adjustments on the entire community of OLGS, is accompanied by optimism that in God’s name and honor, and through the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the school can continually serve the people of Pampanga in educating its future generations to the fullest.