Our Lady of Guadalupe
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40 free Our Lady of Guadalupe trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Few images are as widely recognised as Our Lady of Guadalupe. The story begins in 1531, when an indigenous convert named Juan Diego reported a series of meetings with the Virgin Mary on a hillside outside Mexico City, and it leads to a picture on a cloak that millions of people travel to see every year. This quiz covers the whole tradition: the apparition account and the people in it, the details and symbols in the image, the old and new basilicas, and the older Spanish shrine that shares the name. It also follows the Virgin of Guadalupe through Mexican history, from independence banners to farmworker marches in California. The questions suit parish groups, religion classes, Spanish classes and families getting ready for the feast day, and they give general quiz fans some history with a few surprises.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What did an attacker hide in a flower arrangement beneath the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe in 1921?
A bomb
A bomb went off at the altar, bending a brass crucifix and breaking windows, yet the image on the cloak was unharmed. The twisted crucifix is kept at the shrine as a relic.
Q 02What carries pilgrims beneath the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe in her Mexico City basilica so nobody lingers?
Moving walkways
Moving walkways run under the altar, gliding visitors past the framed cloak so that everyone gets a close look. The image itself hangs behind the altar beneath a large cross.
Q 03Which flowers, out of season in midwinter, did Juan Diego carry to the bishop as the sign from Our Lady of Guadalupe?
Roses
Roses of Castile, a Spanish variety not native to Mexico, are what Juan Diego is said to have found blooming on the barren hilltop. They spilled from his cloak to reveal the image.
Q 04On which date do millions of pilgrims crowd Mexico City's basilica for the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe?
December 12
December 12 marks the day the image is said to have appeared on Juan Diego's cloak. Many pilgrims walk for days to reach the basilica in time for the feast.
Q 05Which explorer named the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe after the older shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Spain?
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus named the island in 1493, having visited the Spanish monastery to give thanks after his first voyage. The Mexican devotion took the same name nearly four decades later.
Q 06Which Mexican birthday song do famous singers perform for Our Lady of Guadalupe on the eve of her feast?
Las Mañanitas
Las Mañanitas is traditionally sung early in the morning to wake someone on their birthday, so the Virgin gets the same serenade a loved one would.
Q 07Our Lady of Guadalupe is said to have appeared in 1531, a decade after Hernán Cortés conquered which people?
The Aztecs
The Aztecs lost their island capital, Tenochtitlan, to Cortés and his indigenous allies in 1521. The apparition story unfolds on the edge of the Spanish city built over it.
Q 08Which rebel priest began Mexico's War of Independence in 1810 with an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe as his banner?
Miguel Hidalgo
Miguel Hidalgo took an image of the Virgin at Atotonilco and fixed it to a lance, giving his rebel army its banner. His troops also wore prints of her on their hats.
Q 09Which pope flew to Mexico City to canonize Juan Diego, the visionary of Our Lady of Guadalupe?
John Paul II
John Paul II made Juan Diego the first indigenous saint of the Americas at a Mass in the basilica itself. He had beatified him in the same building in 1990.
Q 10On which hill north of old Mexico City did Juan Diego report meeting Our Lady of Guadalupe at dawn?
Tepeyac
Tepeyac now lies inside the city's northernmost borough, with the basilica at its foot. A chapel on the summit recalls the first meeting and the midwinter flowers.
Q 11What is the indigenous name for the plant-fibre cloak that bears the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe?
Tilma
Tilma is short for tilmahtli, an everyday men's cloak that was often used as a carry-all. Juan Diego is said to have gathered his flowers in it.
Q 12Which dying relative of Juan Diego was reported cured after his own vision of Our Lady of Guadalupe?
His uncle
His uncle, Juan Bernardino, said the Virgin appeared at his bedside, healed him and gave Guadalupe as her title. Juan Diego had been hurrying to fetch him a priest.
Q 13In the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Juan Diego's cloak, what is the Virgin standing on?
A crescent moon
A crescent moon, now dark, lies under her feet; examiners in 1666 noted that silver added to it had already faded. Golden rays surround the whole figure.
Q 21Which first bishop of Mexico is said to have watched the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe appear on a peasant's cloak?
Juan de Zumárraga
Juan de Zumárraga kept the cloak in his private chapel before it went on public display. Oddly, none of his many surviving writings mentions the event.
Q 22In which region of Spain stands the medieval monastery whose Virgin first bore the title Our Lady of Guadalupe?
Extremadura
Extremadura's shrine was the most important Marian sanctuary in the medieval kingdom of Castile, and its monastery is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Q 23Which shape did architects give the modern Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe so the image is visible from every seat?
Circular
Q 14Which golden shapes are scattered across the blue-green mantle worn by Our Lady of Guadalupe in the famous image?
Stars
Stars cover the gold-edged mantle, which she wears over a dress ornamented with a floral design and tied with a dark ribbon.
Q 15Which winged figure holds up the Virgin from below in the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe?
An angel
An angel supports her, and its wings are said to recall one of the major gods of the region's older religion.
Q 16Guadalupe Victoria, who renamed himself for Our Lady of Guadalupe, was the first holder of which Mexican office?
President
President is the office: born with the surnames Fernández y Félix, he took Guadalupe for the Virgin and Victoria for victory while fighting for independence.
Q 17Which war ended with an 1848 treaty signed in the town around the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe?
Mexican–American War
The Mexican–American War ended in a treaty named for the town, which cost Mexico more than half its territory. It was signed after U.S. troops had taken the capital.
Q 18Which labor leader led California farmworkers on a 1966 march to Sacramento behind a banner of Our Lady of Guadalupe?
Cesar Chavez
Cesar Chavez cast the long walk from Delano as a pilgrimage and act of penance, and finished part of it leaning on a cane. Marchers also carried crucifixes.
Q 19Mexico's party season, jokingly called a marathon, runs from the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe to which holiday?
Epiphany
Epiphany on January 6, Mexico's day of the Three Wise Men, closes the Guadalupe-Reyes Marathon, a nickname from the 1990s for weeks of back-to-back feasting.
Q 20In which language, Juan Diego's mother tongue, is Our Lady of Guadalupe said to have spoken to him?
Nahuatl
Nahuatl was the language of the fallen empire, and the account of the apparitions traditionally held to be the oldest was written in it rather than in Spanish.
Circular and free of interior columns, the building was meant to recall the tent that sheltered the Ark of the Covenant in the desert. Its roof is clad in green copper.
Q 24Why was the Old Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, opened in 1709, replaced by a new church in the 1970s?
It was sinking
It was sinking into unstable ground and could no longer hold the growing crowds. The replacement stands on 344 control piles to stop the same thing happening again.
Q 25Our Lady of Guadalupe's visionary Juan Diego was born Cuauhtlatoatzin, a name usually translated as the talking what?
Eagle
Eagle is the root of his birth name; he became Juan Diego when he was baptised at about fifty by one of Mexico's first missionaries.
Q 26Friar Sahagún complained that pilgrims to Our Lady of Guadalupe called her by which older goddess's title?
Tonantzin
Tonantzin means Our Mother, and Sahagún wrote that a temple to her had stood on the same hill. He suspected the old worship was carrying on under a new name.
Q 27Which Mexican Revolution leader's peasant army carried banners of Our Lady of Guadalupe when it entered Mexico City?
Emiliano Zapata
Emiliano Zapata fought mainly for land reform, yet his southern farmers marched under the Virgin's image and tucked pictures of Mary into their hats for protection.
Q 28Spain's wooden statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe is reputed to have been carved by which Gospel writer?
Luke
Luke is the evangelist credited in legend, which adds that fleeing priests buried the statue in the hills when Seville fell to the Moors.
Q 29A 1648 book by Miguel Sánchez matched the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe to a woman in which biblical book?
Revelation
Revelation describes a woman clothed with the sun, and Sánchez's book, the first printed account of the apparitions, cast the Virgin as that figure.
Q 30In the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the dark sash tied above the waist is read as a sign of what?
Pregnancy
Pregnancy is the usual reading of the black girdle, which is why she is widely invoked as a patroness of unborn children.