Raised Catholic. That was me. As a kid, I didn’t think one way or another about it because being Catholic was all I knew. Heck, it started when I was about 7 or 8 days old. As an adult, though, I began to question some things. I started to get out in the world and meet people who had ideas differing from those of Catholics. Now, I look back on that part of my life, with a combination of sadness and appreciation and curiosity. As with anything, there were good parts about being Catholic and not-so-good parts.
Catholics seem to put a lot of focus on Mary, the mother of Jesus. We prayed the rosary. Not only in church but in our homes. Our schools were named for her. My grade school was Our Lady of Mercy. It goes on.
In one of my religion classes, a kid asked why we always prayed to Mary. We had one of the nicer nuns for the class, and she tried to explain.
When you ask your parents about going somewhere, or doing something, who do you think you’ll have better chances of getting a yes from? Do you ask your dad or your mom?
Most people said they asked their mothers. And the nun equated this to asking Mary for help. You’ll be more likely to get a yes from the mother of God. “Ahhh,” they all said.
Certain historical events will spark memories of these things of the past.
One such case happened on this date, February 11, 1858. That is when St. Bernadette claimed to see the Virgin Mary. Of course, she wasn’t a saint at that point. She was just regular old Bernadette. I bet her friends called her Bernie.
It happened in the south of France — some run-of-the-mill peasant girl, named Marie-Bernarde Soubirous — merrily skipping along as she went to milk a cow or fetch a pail of water. And Wham-O. Right there before her very eyes?
She saw the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ. Bigger than life, Mary standing there, among the rocks in a grotto. As a sidebar. I wish we had grottos around here. We have trees and rocks. Ponds even. But no dang grottos. And big things happen in grottos. Anyway. Back to Bernie and Mary.
There were a total of 18 different apparitions before the end of the year. Marie explained that the Virgin Mary revealed herself as the Immaculate Conception. Now, this is curious to me. About Mary calling herself the Immaculate Conception. Is that like Bette Midler calling herself The Divine Miss M? Or Mohammed Ali calling himself The Greatest of All Time? It seems a little over the top for Mary. But maybe that is God’s nickname name for Mary. Perhaps.
I don’t mean to sound like I am making fun, or not believing, in this because, on the contrary, I think it could be true. The Universe is a big dang place that we really don’t understand.
At any rate, when the Immaculate Conception would talk to little Marie-Bernarde Soubirous, she said a number of different things. But mostly, she asked that a chapel be built on the site of the vision. She also told the girl to drink from a fountain in the grotto. Marie dug around a bit, and found the water source for the fountain.
There was widespread attention. But most people back then did not believe little Marie. Specifically, the church authorities. They subjected her to severe examinations and refused to accept her visions. It was hard on the poor girl.
She went through years of mistreatment about this. Finally, Marie was allowed to enter the convent of Notre-Dame de Nevers. She stayed inside those walls, in prayer and seclusion. She died of ill heath at the age of 35.
Somewhere along the lines, the tables turned about her claims, her sightings, the manifestations. In 1933, the Catholic Church decided to canonize Marie-Bernarde Soubirous as St. Bernadette. These days, millions of believers travel to Lourdes every year to visit St. Bernadette’s grotto, the most famous of the “Mary” sightings. People also claim those waters supposedly have curative powers. I would wonder about this, as young Marie drank from that fountain if you recall. It didn’t gain her any marks in longevity.
There have been thousands of sightings of the Virgin Mary around the globe throughout the centuries. The Vatican has “accredited” 15 of those sightings and has “recognized” an additional ten. Hundreds still await investigation.
I need a grotto.
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“I believe in everything until it’s disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it’s in your mind.”
― John Lennon
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“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
― Carl Sagan
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“I talk to God but the sky is empty.”
― Sylvia Plath
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“I dont think that we’re meant to understand it all the time. I think that sometimes we just have to have faith.”
― Nicholas Sparks, A Walk to Remember
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