It could be a creation of the devil though ...
Within 40 years of Our Lady's appearance, the bloody human sacrifices of the Aztecs (which used to murder hundreds and thousands of people a day at times to their gods/goddesses) came to an end and the Indian population converted to Christianity. You should read a good history on Guadalupe, such as the
Wonder of Guadalupe.
Some of the extraordinary things about the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe:
- The eyes behave like living eyes, contracting and dilating with light and reflecting images like real eyes. They also show the image of that encounter of Juan Diego at the Bishops residence.
- The stars on her cloak are the exact positions of the stars that were viewable at that location in Mexico at that time.
- The image is not on the cloak, but is suspended a fraction of an inch above the tilma
- The image defies copying; that is no copy, whether by hand or photograph, can duplicate the glorious splendor of the image in person.
- Many features, such as the eyes, are too fine of details to be painted on so coarse a material as the tilma.
- The tilma, made of coarse cactus fiber (its a poor peasant work apron) can only survive at best 40 years -- this one has survived over ten times as long.
- No evidence of artistic creation, such as sketching, brush strokes, over-coats, has been detected even in using state of the art computer and photographic analysis.
- The apparent size and color qualities change on distance from the tilma.
- etc.
I just can't believe that the Blessed Theotokos would appear as a Indian Pagan Goddess or resembles one just to convert the Indians to Christianity..
She didn't come as a pagan goddess, she appeared as an young Indian woman. She did lead the Indian population away from their snake gods and human sacrifice.
The people torture them selfs by walking on there knees to that shrine some times for miles ..
And Eastern Orthodoxy has never been known for any sort of above average asceticism.
FYI -- did you know that the original Our Lady of Guadalupe was a statue carved by Saint Luke that found its way to Spain.