• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

Constantia Catholic Church

Our Lady of the Visitation

Our Lady of the Visitation
4 Price Drive • Constantia 7848
Phone: 021 794 5185
Parish Office

  • Home
  • About
    • Synod 2021-2023: FOR A SYNODAL CHURCH
    • Lent 2022
    • Bulletins
    • Parish History
      • Father Heinz-Werner Schneider
      • Father David Musgrave
      • Father Andrew Cox
      • Father Frank Conlisk
      • Father Robert Bissell
    • Mass & Confession Times
    • Parish Officers
    • Parish Pastoral Council
    • Parish Photo Gallery
    • Contact Us
  • Community
    • SAGRA
    • New Parishioners
    • Sunday School
    • Community News
    • Parish Notices & Activities
    • Internment Services and Garden of Remembrance
    • Mortuary List
    • Classified Ads
  • Ministries
    • Grief Workshop
    • Bible Study
    • RCIA
    • Catechism & Confirmation
    • Marriage Enrichment
    • Justice & Peace
    • Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary
    • Care Group
  • Social Justice & Outreach
    • Community Outreach
    • Season of Creation 2022
    • Hunger is Real – Share A Meal
    • Winter Warmers
    • Bags of Love
    • Advent Candles Campaign for St. Kizito
  • Liturgy
    • Proclaimers of the Word
    • Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion
    • Welcome Ministry – The Meet & Greet Team
    • Sacristans
    • Flowers
    • Choirs of Music
  • Catholic Resources
    • CD Library
    • Archdiocese of Cape Town
    • Vocations
      • The Life of St. Jean-Marie Vianney
      • Jean Vianney: A Brief History
      • Visiting Ars
      • Prayers for Priests
      • What Can We Do to Support Our Priests
    • Pilgrimages
      • Oberammergau 2010
      • The Camino
    • The Saints
      • Saint Francis of Assisi
      • Saints Joachim and Anne
      • Pope Saint Leo I – the Great
      • Saint Maximilian Kolbe
      • Saints Simon and Jude
      • Padre Pio
      • Saint Teresa of Avila
      • Saint Vincent de Paul
    • Sacraments
      • Confession
    • Pro-Life
      • Prayers to End Abortion
      • Our Lady of Guadalupe
  • Calendar
    • Events
  • Giving
You are here: Home / Catholic Resources / Pro-Life / Our Lady of Guadalupe

Our Lady of Guadalupe

Protector of the Unborn

"Am I not here, who is your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not the fountain of your joy? "

A Brief Overview of the Story... 

The Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to Juan Diego, a peasant baptised Indian Aztec, on Tepeyac hill near Mexico City on the 9th of December 1531. Our Lady revealed herself as the "ever-virgin Mary, Mother of the true God, who gives life and maintains it in existence. He created all things. He is in all places. He is Lord of heaven and earth."

Our Lady told Juan Diego to go to the local bishop and tell him that she desired a church to be built on the hill in her honour. "I desire a church at this place where I will show my compassion to your people and to all people who sincerely ask my help in their work and in their sorrows. Here, I will see their tears; I will console them and they will be at ease."

Asked for a sign to convince the Bishop, Saint Juan Diego was told by Our Lady to climb to the summit of Tepeyac where he was to gather roses in his cloak and take to the bishop. Opening his cloak to show the roses, the bishop was astonished to see the Virgin Mary's colourful portrait as a young woman with child miraculously imprinted on the coarse fabric of Saint Juan's cloak.

News of the miraculous apparition of the Virgin's image on a peasant's cloak spread rapidly throughout Mexico. Indians by the tens of thousands, learning that the mother of the Christian God had appeared to one of their own kind and spoken to him in his native language, came from hundreds of miles away to see the image. It was to have a powerful influence on the advancement of the Church's mission in Mexico. In only seven years, from 1532 to 1538, more than eight million Indians were converted to Christianity.

This cloak or mantle has been preserved to this day in the Basilica Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, and is the most visited pilgrimage site in the Western hemisphere. Juan Diego's cloak is preserved behind bulletproof glass and hangs twenty-five feet above the main altar in the basilica. For more than 450 years the colors of the image have remained as bright as if they were painted yesterday, and the coarse-woven cactus cloth of the cloak, which seldom lasts more that twenty years, shows no evidence of decay.

More Useful Links on St. Juan Diego and The Shrine of Guadalupe
  • Catholic Encyclopaedia (on EWTN) - The Shrine of Guadalupe
  • St. Juan Diego (on American Catholic)
  • More on St. Juan Diego (on Catholic Radio Dramas) 
  • Infallible Catholic: Miraculous Image of Our Lady of Guadalupe

Footer

Our Lady of the Visitation

4 Price Drive
Constantia 7848
021 794 5185
Open daily from 8:30 - 1:00 pm

Photo Galleries

JOIN US ON

Copyright © 2023 Constantia Catholic - Our Lady of The Visitation - Constantia, Cape Town 7848