We have new fun for your coloring kids (and you!) for the month of Mary–all through May! It’s a series of “Our Lady’s Color-by-Number” Apparition Activity Pages!

Every few days throughout the month of May, we will post another Color-By-Number of a different Marian Apparition!

This will help you and your children learn more about Our Lady’s messages in many of her apparitions (some you’ll have heard about, some you may not have!) and the importance of each of her outfits. She always dressed beautifully, but she never wore the same outfit twice!

With each full-page color-by-number printable, you’ll get a summary of the details of the apparition, what she asked for, and a short prayer to contemplate in a child’s heart. Each blog post will provide more information and plenty of pictures to inspire wonder in your children about the times Our Blessed Mother came down from Heaven to visit her children still on earth.

While children color the image to reveal her outfit, they can ponder the prayer so Mary can bring them closer to her Son. Maybe you can even talk to them about it!

Want access to all 6 of the Our Lady color-by-numbers? Click below for the entire coloring book download!

Now, read on for the story behind our first color-by-number:

the outfit Our Blessed Mother wore which we call Our Lady of Guadalupe.

In the winter of December 1531, a beautiful lady appeared to a man named Juan Diego on Tepeyac Hill near Mexico City. Juan Diego was over 50 years old, but he always ran over Tepeyac Hill on his way to Mass–especially on days like that one: it was the day when they celebrated the Feast of the Immaculate Conception to honor Mary!

Juan Diego was surprised and didn’t know who this beautiful lady was, but he was very polite to her!

She told him that she was the Mother of God and that she wanted Juan Diego to tell the bishop that she wanted a church to be built on the hill where they stood. Juan Diego said he wasn’t an important enough person to make such a request to the bishop, but Mary said that she had personally selected Juan Diego for the task.

So, Juan Diego was obedient to her. But when Juan Diego told Bishop Zumárraga the Virgin Mary’s wishes and all that she had said to him, the bishop did not believe him. He said he wanted proof that it really was the Blessed Mother who had spoken with him.

Juan Diego ran back over Tepeyac Hill on his way home–and Our Lady appeared there again. She told him to be persistent and ask the bishop again tomorrow.

I don’t have space here to tell you everything (you can get more of the story in an MP3 download here), but after speaking with the Lady three times, Juan Diego’s uncle Bernardino became very sick, so sick that Juan Diego skipped his next meeting with the Blessed Mother. Instead, he hurried to the city to get a priest to bless his uncle before he died. Juan Diego ran a different way to avoid Tepeyac Hill where he had always seen Our Lady, because he didn’t want to be delayed by speaking with her. But she found him along the way as he ran! She scolded him for avoiding her, his heavenly mother, and told him that she had just visited his Uncle Bernardino at his home–and that he had been healed!

She then sent Juan Diego to the top of the hill to pick some roses blooming in the middle of winter and made them into a beautiful arrangement in his cloak, which they called a “tilma”. She told him to take them to the bishop as the proof he had asked for.

Juan Diego did just as she asked him. When he opened his tilma, Bishop Zumárraga was amazed to see roses like those he had known in Spain.

But that was not all: on the tilma was a perfect image of the Beautiful Lady, just as Juan Diego had described her!

Our Lady chose very special clothes for her visit to Mexico, because she left a picture of them for everyone to see! When she was up in Heaven getting ready to go to earth to visit Juan Diego, she chose a dress the color of roses and a long flowing veil like a blue sky scattered with golden stars. A dark navy sash around her waist was the perfect final touch.

Our Lady called herself Juan Diego’s mother and wanted to feel as familiar to him as the mother he knew growing up So she dressed herself in clothes like they wore in that place and time. In fact, when Juan Diego first saw Our Lady, he said he wasn’t scared because he thought she was a beautiful Aztec princess taking a walk atop the hill! Our Lady and Mother is so thoughtful!

And I think of all her outfits, she must have really liked this one! Do you know why I think so?

Because she made certain that millions of people would see her in it! You can see the image of her in it even today, hanging in a frame in the basilica in Mexico City! It’s been nearly 500 years but the image is still clear and beautiful. Our Lady of Guadalupe–pray for us!

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PS Would you like an instant MP3 download of the true story of Saint Juan Diego and Our Lady of Guadalupe for children to listen to while they color? Then–click here to get Fresh Flowers in Winter. They’ll love it!

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