MERCY TOURS
Your Catholic pilgrimage resource
A Spiritual and Cultural experience
Mercy Tours Inc. 6504 28th Street S.E. Suite Q Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546
Tel: 1-877-404-4240 616-942-4773 fax 616-808-3794
Although a very humble church, it is one of the holiest churches we will visit.
It is a part of the whole story of the apparitions of Our Lady to Juan Diego. To understand this you must first understand the days preceding this. On December 11th Our Lady had again appeared to Juan Diego and told him that he would be given a sign to take to the Bishop on the following day, since the Bishop had requested some proof of his claims.
Juan Diego must have felt relief until he returned home in Tulpetlac to find that his uncle, Juan Bernardino, his only living relative, was deathly ill with fever. No attempt to break the fever had worked. That night Juan Diego did not want to leave his uncle's bedside. The following day, December 12th, his uncle asked him to go to get a priest so that he might receive the anointing of the sick and the Eucharist.
Fearing he might run in to Our Lady and be delayed, Juan Diego decided to take a different route from the ones previously taken. However as he was skirting the hilltop she appeared to him and asked him what troubled him. Juan Diego explained that his uncle was dying and that he must take care of him. She advised him that he should not worry and that his uncle would not die, and in fact assured him that he was already cured. And so it was on this day that Juan Diego continued on his journey to Mt. Tepeyac to pick the roses as a sign for the Bishop. And of course the Tilma of Juan Diego was a much more powerful sign even than the roses.
Upon returning home to his uncle the following day, Juan Bernardino confirmed that Our Lady had appeared to him and spoke to him the previous day. She repeated her request to have a church built on Tepeyac Hill and that she should be called "Our Lady of Guadalupe".
The Church was later constructed over the ruins of the home of Juan Bernardino. It is commonly known as the Church of the Fifth Apparition but is actually Santa Maria Tulpetlac.
There is a plaque in the sacristy which states that Pope Pius XII had granted a plenary indulgence to those who visit this church and who meet the normal requirements necessary for a plenary indulgence.
There is also a healing well located under the altar in the church. The Church of the Fifth Apparition had been designated as the World Center of Healing by Pope John Paul II.
The Sacristan, Angel, told us the amazing story of a visiting priest, from the United States who while in prayer before the picture of the healing of Juan Diego’s uncle, Juan Bernardino, suddenly saw the image of Pope John Paul II where the hand of the Blessed Mother had been. It is our understanding, after talking to Angel, that this image had not been seen before that day.
