Father Mike Schmitz

The tilma itself, normal tilmas only last a couple years, if maybe a dozen years.

This has been hundreds of years this has existed.

It's remarkable in the image, the woman, the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, she is what?

She's clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and on her head, a crown of 12 stars.

And this is the point of the story.

Now, ultimately, the point is not just that Mary appeared and did a miracle on a tilma, on a poncho, and they built a church in honor of God through what he's done.

The point is, immediately after this, I believe there was something like five to nine million conversions to Jesus Christ.

Remember in Genesis chapter three, there was talk about, you know, someone striking the head of the evil one, crushing the head of the serpent.

And we see that that happened here in the new world.

Our lady appeared with clothes in the sun, moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of 12 stars.

And what happened after that was the stranglehold that the evil one had on the native people here, whom God died for, whom he loves, were set free from that.

And they came to know Jesus Christ and gave their lives for him and to him.

That's just an incredible story.

I think it's incredible.

We also have the rest of the Bible here, and we have all of these images of the beasts from the sea, the beasts from the earth, as well as the lamb and the 144,000.

One of the things we can keep in mind in all of this is that in the midst of all this persecution, we also have the number 666, remembering that this is both

a vision of what happened to the people, the people in the early church in that first century of Christianity, as well as some projection of what will happen at the end of time.

So we have this is the persecution they went under.

And this is one of the things that we can take solace and take comfort in that our brothers and sisters have been through this before.

That yes, they have not lived through the final judgment, but they lived through persecution and they've survived that.