Our Lady of Ocotlan Mexico 1541 — Apparitions and Major Devotions — Marian Devotion Downloadable 8k Digital Illustration

"The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the rose."
Isaiah 35:1

In 1541, a young indigenous man named Juan Diego Bernardino was fetching water from a river to help those suffering from a deadly plague. As he passed through a forest of ocote (pine) trees, Mary appeared to him and led him to a specific tree, telling him that a medicinal spring would flow from its roots. She instructed him to inform the Franciscan friars that they would find her image inside that very tree. When the friars chopped into the trunk of the tallest pine, they found it hollow, with the wood naturally shaped into a beautiful, life-sized statue of the Virgin. Rendered in charred ocote pine, Tlaxcala carving tradition.