Some speculate that the house was built on a hill in order to protect Mary from persecutors. Those who wanted to destroy the memory of Jesus would certainly want to destroy his mother, as we know they wanted to destroy Lazarus, whom Jesus had resurrected (Jn 12: 9-10). Like the risen Lazarus, Mary would have been physical, visible evidence of the reality of Jesus. Not only her face, but her joy and certainty would have revealed the truth and authority of his presence.

Almost fifteen hundred years later, Mary appeared to another John, Saint Juan Diego, whom she addressed as "Juanito," or "little John:" She asked Juan Diego to build a house for her on a hill just outside Mexico City. "Know for certain, dearest of my sons, that I am the perfect and perpetual Virgin Mary... I ardently desire a temple be built here for me where I will show and offer all my love, my compassion, my help, and my protection to the people:"

When Bishop Juan Zumarraga doubted Juan Diego's vision, Mary answered his uncertainty with the visage of her face miraculously imprinted on the Aztec's tilma. The face that had revealed and strengthened the faith of the Ephesians would do the same for Bishop Juan Zumarraga and the Spaniards and Aztecs under his care.

The image on the tilma told a story to the Aztecs, who used images as a mode of written communication. The image is reminiscent of Saint John's description of the Messiah's mother in Revelation, "a woman robed with the sun, standing on the moon:" That she stands in front of the sun and upon the moon revealed to the Aztecs that she is greater than these, and that these are not to be worshiped as gods. Her folded hands and her owed head show that she does not claim to be a goddess, but rather a handmaid of the one true God. Who is the true God? Those who were drawn close enough could see a small cross on the collar of her tunic, claiming that the one true God is Jesus Christ, as preached by Bishop Zumarraga and the other missionaries in the New World. Indeed, millions of Aztecs were drawn close enough to see and rejoice in this cross, and become Christians. Mary's face brought them liberation from their false gods for whom they committed violent human sacrifice.

As the enemies of the early Church wanted to destroy the memory of Jesus, so an attempt was made to destroy this miraculous tilma. In 1921 a bomb placed directly beneath the sacred image shattered the windows of the church and bent a heavy bronze crucifix, while the image and its protective glass remained unharmed. As God's mercy saved the woman of John's revelation from the dragon, and the Aztecs from their deadly serpent god, he has preserved this holy image for us.

Scientists who have studied the tilma marvel at the inexplicable imprinting of the image onto the cactus fibers of the tilma and at the fact that the tilma itself has not disintegrated. Recently, scientists have discovered microscopic images in the eyes of Our Lady of Guadalupe which show them to have properties identical to the retinas of a living human eye.