On Monday May 7 and Tuesday May 8, Marianapolis received the honor of housing the Icon of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The Knights of Columbus have been transporting the icon to different Catholic schools and churches in the local area.

As the story goes, around the 1530s, when Mexico was still a Spanish colony, a recently converted Aztec man, Juan Diego, saw a vision of a beautiful dark-skinned woman on the Tepeyac Hill. She spoke to him in his native language and said she was the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus. She asked Juan Diego to build her a church on the hill. When Juan told the local bishop, the bishop wanted proof. The Virgin Mary told Juan to go back to the hill where he would find Castillian roses, which were rare for the area at the time. Juan gathered the roses in his tilma cloak, and when he delivered the roses to the bishop, the image of the woman on the hill appeared on the cloak. The church was built and Our Lady of Guadalupe has become part of the Mexican tradition and culture, becoming a national unifying symbol during the Mexican War of Independence.

The traveling icon was touched by the original image of Our Lady of Guadalupe and sealed with soil from the first church on Tepeyac Hill. The original image has lasted longer than 450 years, and has been scientifically tested to find out how it has lasted so long, but it remains a mystery.