MAY THE MONTH OF MARY-   On December 9, 1531, Mary appeared to Juan Diego, introducing herself as the Mother of God and requesting a church on Tepeyac Hill to show her love to all people. A The Bishop's Request: Juan Diego went to Bishop Juan de Zumárraga, who was skeptical and asked for a sign to prove the vision. A The Miraculous Sign: On December 12, Mary told Juan Diego to pick flowers on top of the barren hill. Despite the winter, he found beautiful flowers. The Virgin bundled the flowers into Juan's cloak, known as a tilma. When Juan Diego presented the tilma of exotic flowers to Zumárraga, the flowers fell out and he recognized them as Castilian roses, which are not found in Mexico. What was even more significant, however, was that the tilma had been miraculously imprinted with a colorful image of the Virgin herself. The actual tilma, preserved since that date and showing the familiar image of the Virgin Mary with her head bowed and hands together in prayer, represents the Virgin of Guadalupe. It remains perhaps the most sacred object in all of Mexico. The image to this day cannot be explained by science. Studies by doctors and scientists over the past century have resulted in some phenomenal findings. In the case of a three-hour infrared study of the tilma conducted in 1981 by Dr. Philip Callahan, a biophysicist and consultant for NASA, it was discovered that the figure of the Blessed Virgin Mother on the tilma maintains a temperature of 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, which is the natural temperature of the living human body. Another investigation by Dr. Carlos Fernandez del Castillo revealed that, when listening to the image with a stethoscope, one heartbeat could be heard at the chest of Our Lady, and a second within her womb that carries the unborn Christ. Ophthalmologists examined the image and discovered that the eyes of Our Lady of Guadalupe reflect images back at the viewer just as the normal human eyeball does