The 481 year old Tilma of Juan Diego, which can still be seen to this day, bears upon it the beloved and miraculous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The Blessed Virgin Mary left the imprint of Her image on Juan Diego’s tilma when she appeared to him on December 12, 1531.

In times past, a ‘tilma’ was similar to what we would call a shawl. It was a made of very simple, poor material consisting of maguey cactus fibers. Ordinarily, this fabric would have disintegrated within thirty years - but the cloth of the Tilma of Guadalupe remains intact to this day, almost five hundred years later.

Over the centuries, Our Lady has brought many people to Her Son through Her title and image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Within the nine years of her apparition to Juan Diego, over nine million Aztec Indians converted to the Catholic Faith - an average of over 2,700 people a day! Our Lady of Guadalupe has been dearly loved by Her people in Mexico and throughout the Americas.

But this image, which for centuries has helped the Catholics of Mexico stay firm in their Faith, is naturally an object of hatred to the enemies of God. They are infuriated not only by the successes which Mary has achieved through it, but also by the mere fact that the Tilma itself is miraculous. For anything miraculous is a proof of the supernatural, and therefore is a proof of the existence of God. Freemasonry, an organization whose self-proclaimed goal is the destruction of the Catholic Church, and the eradication of every trace and memory of the True God from the face of the earth, despises all that is Catholic. And so its members, the Masons, resolved to destroy the picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe, depriving the Mexican Catholics of Her forever.

On November 14, 1921, a factory worker was seen entering the Cathedral. He was carrying a beautiful bouquet of roses. In a pretended desire to venerate Our Lady’s image, he placed the flowers directly at the foot of the Tilma. For concealed within this supposed token of affection, at the bottom of the vase, was a bomb - purposefully planted by the Masons.

With a terrifying roar the bomb exploded, and the sanctuary was blown into pieces. The main altar’s marble steps were demolished and the altar rail, also made of marble, was damaged severely. In fact, the force of the explosion was so powerful that windows were blown out in houses nearby. Incredibly, no one was hurt at all from the blast, despite how devastatingly it had mutilated the sanctuary.

While the shock of the explosion was passing and the impact of the damage was being assessed, a touching sight was to be seen in the ruins of the sanctuary. The cast-iron crucifix that stood next to the altar had suffered terribly from the bomb. Bent horribly, it seemed as if it had suffered the full force of the blast. It was bent violently backwards - towards the Tilma, showing how Jesus had protected and shielded His Mother from harm, taking onto Himself all the effects of the attack. For even though this sturdy iron crucifix (which has been preserved and can still be seen today) was bent entirely out of shape, the panel of glass in front of the cloth was not even cracked. And the Tilma itself, which hung directly above the planted explosive, did not suffer the slightest damage.