Pilgrimage

I'm not a Catholic, but I recognize the importance of the Catholic Church in Western history, for good and for bad.  I'm not convinced that their saints have performed post-death miracles, which is a requirement for sainthood, but I respect the power of faith. 

I'll quote from my Top 10 Mexico City book, published by DK Eyewitness Travel:

The holiest Roman Catholic shrine in Latin America is also the most visited in the world.  It was here in 1531 that an Aztec peasant named Juan Diego claimed to have seen a vision of the beautiful Virgin who requested that a chapel be built.  Over the centuries, pilgrims and the faithful have come to workship the Virgin of Guadalupe.

There is also a 490-year-old cloak there, and Wikipedia (the source of all knowledge and wisdom) tells the story:

She (the vision of the Virgin Mary) assured him (Juan Diego) that Juan Bernardino had now recovered and told him to gather flowers from the summit of Tepeyac Hill, which was normally barren, especially in the cold of December. Juan Diego obeyed her instruction and he found Castilian roses, not native to Mexico, blooming there.

According to the story, the Virgin arranged the flowers in Juan Diego's tilma, or cloak, and when Juan Diego opened his cloak later that day before Archbishop Zumárraga, the flowers fell to the floor, revealing on the fabric the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

The next day, December 13 (Julian calendar), Juan Diego found his uncle fully recovered as the Virgin had assured him, and Juan Bernardino recounted that he also had seen her after praying at his bedside (fifth apparition); that she had instructed him to inform the Archbishop of this apparition and of his miraculous cure; and that she had told him she desired to be known under the title of 'Guadalupe'.

The Archbishop kept Juan Diego's mantle, first in his private chapel and then in the church on public display, where it attracted great attention. On December 26, 1531, a procession formed to transfer the miraculous image back to Tepeyac Hill where it was installed in a small, hastily erected chapel. During this procession, the first miracle was allegedly performed when a native was mortally wounded in the neck by an arrow shot by accident during some stylized martial displays performed in honor of the Virgin. In great distress, the natives carried him before the Virgin's image and pleaded for his life. Upon the arrow being withdrawn, the victim fully and immediately recovered.

Is today the day I go to see the new basilica and the cloak?  Maybe!  It's certainly on my list of things I'd like to do this trip.