Our Lady Queen of Ireland
It was a rainy evening, Thursday, August 21, 1879 in County Mayo. But there's nothing unusual about that. There are a lot of rainy evenings in western Ireland, even in August. But before the night was over, something would happen in the tiny village of Knock that would make this a very unusual evening. In fact it was a night that would change not just Irish history, but the entire history of Christianity. On that evening, barely ten years after the American Civil War, the Blessed Virgin visited Knock. And she wasn't alone. She brought her husband, St. Joseph, and St. John the Baptist with her.
Now, if you're like me you may be a little skeptical about this "apparition" stuff. Lourdes, Fatima, Knock; how do we know Mary was really there? There are no pictures. She didn't leave anything behind. There's no proof. Isn't this like the lady in Tennessee who saw Mary in her toast or the highway overpass in Chicago where the rust marks looked like Mary's face? I'm from Missouri. Show me.
There were fifteen witnesses to Mary, Joseph, and John's visit to Knock. They ranged in age from six to seventy-five years. They were all thoroughly questioned by Vatican representatives and they all told exactly the same story. Maybe the adults could have pulled a fast one, but you have to think that the six-year-old told the truth. Besides, in 1879 Knock was just a tiny, backward village. These were simple, honest people and the idea that they could have made this up just doesn't make sense.
More than 1,000,000 people visit Knock each year, which isn't all that easy. It's hard to get to Knock, even today.today. I can't even imagine getting there in the 19th Century. It's definitely off the beaten path.
Even today Knock is a really small town, fewer than 600 people. The town's main street has two pubs, one restaurant, one grocery store, and about a hundred souvenir shops. But they have three Catholic churches. The biggest, Our Lady Queen of Ireland basilica was built in 1967 and holds 2,000 people. But the original church, where Mary appeared is much smaller. It's about the size of our church.
Things were bad in Ireland in 1879. The great famine had lasted from 1845 to as late as 1852. The western part of the island, where Knock is located, had been the last area to recover. The people in County Mayo were very poor. During the famine, more than a million people had died and another million had left Ireland, never to return. The population had been decreased by almost 1/4. Even today, more than 150 years later, Ireland's population is still less than it was before the famine began.
You can imagine the feelings of the Irish people at the time. Most of them blamed the British government for so many deaths. During the period of the famine, the government continued to export food from Ireland to England while the Irish people were starving. Many Catholic were thrown into jail, some even died, because they refused to publicly deny the faith in exchange for food. With one out of four people either dead or emigrated, no one was untouched by tragedy. If anyone ever needed a visitor from heaven, it was the Irish people in the late 1800s.
Then, on that rainy August night, the Blessed Virgin appeared outside St. John's Church in County Mayo. Mary McLoughlin, the housekeeper to the parish priest, saw a bright light coming from the direction of the church. Mary was standing outside the church, bathed in the bright light, with St. Joseph on one side and St. John on the other. A small crowd gathered in the rain and recited the rosary for two hours while Mary stood with her eyes toward heaven. She never spoke, she just stood there, untouched by the rain. After she left, the ground where she had been was completely dry.
Scholars believe that she visited Ireland to show solidarity with the Irish people who are known for their devotion to her. Unlike Mary's other appearances on earth, she didn't say anything. She just stood there, looking up to heaven. She didn't speak because her presence was her message. The people understood. No words were needed.
Did she really appear? After questioning everyone involved, the Church officially said "quite probably". But there's no denying that the Shrine at Knock has been the site of hundreds of miracles, the first one coming just ten days after Mary's appearance, when a little girl was cured of a hearing disorder. One of the witnesses to the apparition, Mary Byrne, lived to be 86 years old, dying in 1936. Her account of that night never varied.
The reason I'm telling you about Our Lady of Knock is because it's one of the wonders of our Catholic faith. They've built an enclosure around the side of the Church of St. John and turned it into a chapel. Jan and I spent some time there on our trip to Ireland. I can't begin to explain the overwhelming feeling of peace and tranquility in that space. I've never felt anything like it. No one speaks in the chapel , so when we came out, I said to Jan, "Did you feel that?" She said she did.
The closest I can come to a description is that it was similar to the feeling I get at Eucharistic Adoration, but it was much stronger. At the same time, it was more gentle. If I had to find a word to describe it, I guess it was more "feminine". But human words just don't cut it. Christ is physically present in the Eucharist, but somehow Mary is present at that little church in County Mayo, too. You just have to take our word for it. Jan, me, and the million or so people who visit each year.
There are some things about our faith that you just can't explain. You can't explain the Eucharist to someone who's never experienced it. You can't explain it to some people who've received it. I think that's because there's a difference between receiving and experiencing.
You can't explain the feeling of peace and tranquility that comes after a good confession to someone who's never had one. Non-Catholics think we're foolish for letting a mere man intercede for us in the sacrament of reconciliation because they've never experienced it. They say that God already knows their sins. They don't have to express them to another human being. They've never experienced it. They just don't get it.
You can't explain Eucharistic Adoration to a non-Catholic because they don't get the Real Presence.
That's why it can be difficult to evangelize our faith to non-Catholics and even to some fallen-away Catholics who don't really understand exactly what it is that they're falling away from. We're stuck with intellectual arguments to define a FAITH. And what is faith? It's the ability to accept something that can't be proven. We all have faith in something, don't we? We have faith that that semi-truck heading towards us at 70 miles per hour is going to stay in its own lane. We have faith that the ones we love will never leave us. We have faith that our team will win the World Series, or the Super Bowl, or the Stanley Cup, even though common sense tells us otherwise. We seem to have no problem having faith in science or human nature, or human skill, but some of us just can't get our minds around faith in an all-powerful, all-loving God.
But, not only do we have to have faith in God, we're called to share that faith with others. All three readings today point to that fact. The first reading and the Gospel are about loving your neighbor. In the second reading, St. Paul writes to the Thessalonians, "For from you the word of the Lord has sounded forth not only in Macedonia and in Achaia, but in every place your faith in God has gone forth, so that we have no need to say anything."
Maybe that's the key. You can't experience the faith until you have the faith. Maybe by showing OUR faith, that's how we can share it with others. We can quote "chapter and verse", we can make all the logical arguments, but chances are we'll fail in our evangelization most of the time. On the other hand, if our friends and family actually see us living the faith, that might be the thing that lets them see exactly what our faith is.
Let me repeat that quote from St. Paul. It's important. "For from you the word of the Lord has sounded forth not only in Macedonia and in Achaia, but in every place your faith in God has gone forth, so that we have no need to say anything." So, St. Paul, the man who did more to teach the faith than anyone who ever lived, the man whose words define the faith, believed that the faith of the Thessalonians was enough--that where their faith had spread, he didn't have to say anything.
Wouldn't it be nice if people would say that about us. How can we make that happen. Jesus tells us in today's Gospel.
"You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.....You shall love your neighbor as yourself."
Like Mary showed us by visiting that small Irish village, maybe we don't have to say anything.
Now, if you're like me you may be a little skeptical about this "apparition" stuff. Lourdes, Fatima, Knock; how do we know Mary was really there? There are no pictures. She didn't leave anything behind. There's no proof. Isn't this like the lady in Tennessee who saw Mary in her toast or the highway overpass in Chicago where the rust marks looked like Mary's face? I'm from Missouri. Show me.
There were fifteen witnesses to Mary, Joseph, and John's visit to Knock. They ranged in age from six to seventy-five years. They were all thoroughly questioned by Vatican representatives and they all told exactly the same story. Maybe the adults could have pulled a fast one, but you have to think that the six-year-old told the truth. Besides, in 1879 Knock was just a tiny, backward village. These were simple, honest people and the idea that they could have made this up just doesn't make sense.
More than 1,000,000 people visit Knock each year, which isn't all that easy. It's hard to get to Knock, even today.today. I can't even imagine getting there in the 19th Century. It's definitely off the beaten path.
Even today Knock is a really small town, fewer than 600 people. The town's main street has two pubs, one restaurant, one grocery store, and about a hundred souvenir shops. But they have three Catholic churches. The biggest, Our Lady Queen of Ireland basilica was built in 1967 and holds 2,000 people. But the original church, where Mary appeared is much smaller. It's about the size of our church.
Things were bad in Ireland in 1879. The great famine had lasted from 1845 to as late as 1852. The western part of the island, where Knock is located, had been the last area to recover. The people in County Mayo were very poor. During the famine, more than a million people had died and another million had left Ireland, never to return. The population had been decreased by almost 1/4. Even today, more than 150 years later, Ireland's population is still less than it was before the famine began.
You can imagine the feelings of the Irish people at the time. Most of them blamed the British government for so many deaths. During the period of the famine, the government continued to export food from Ireland to England while the Irish people were starving. Many Catholic were thrown into jail, some even died, because they refused to publicly deny the faith in exchange for food. With one out of four people either dead or emigrated, no one was untouched by tragedy. If anyone ever needed a visitor from heaven, it was the Irish people in the late 1800s.
Then, on that rainy August night, the Blessed Virgin appeared outside St. John's Church in County Mayo. Mary McLoughlin, the housekeeper to the parish priest, saw a bright light coming from the direction of the church. Mary was standing outside the church, bathed in the bright light, with St. Joseph on one side and St. John on the other. A small crowd gathered in the rain and recited the rosary for two hours while Mary stood with her eyes toward heaven. She never spoke, she just stood there, untouched by the rain. After she left, the ground where she had been was completely dry.
Scholars believe that she visited Ireland to show solidarity with the Irish people who are known for their devotion to her. Unlike Mary's other appearances on earth, she didn't say anything. She just stood there, looking up to heaven. She didn't speak because her presence was her message. The people understood. No words were needed.
Did she really appear? After questioning everyone involved, the Church officially said "quite probably". But there's no denying that the Shrine at Knock has been the site of hundreds of miracles, the first one coming just ten days after Mary's appearance, when a little girl was cured of a hearing disorder. One of the witnesses to the apparition, Mary Byrne, lived to be 86 years old, dying in 1936. Her account of that night never varied.
The reason I'm telling you about Our Lady of Knock is because it's one of the wonders of our Catholic faith. They've built an enclosure around the side of the Church of St. John and turned it into a chapel. Jan and I spent some time there on our trip to Ireland. I can't begin to explain the overwhelming feeling of peace and tranquility in that space. I've never felt anything like it. No one speaks in the chapel , so when we came out, I said to Jan, "Did you feel that?" She said she did.
The closest I can come to a description is that it was similar to the feeling I get at Eucharistic Adoration, but it was much stronger. At the same time, it was more gentle. If I had to find a word to describe it, I guess it was more "feminine". But human words just don't cut it. Christ is physically present in the Eucharist, but somehow Mary is present at that little church in County Mayo, too. You just have to take our word for it. Jan, me, and the million or so people who visit each year.
There are some things about our faith that you just can't explain. You can't explain the Eucharist to someone who's never experienced it. You can't explain it to some people who've received it. I think that's because there's a difference between receiving and experiencing.
You can't explain the feeling of peace and tranquility that comes after a good confession to someone who's never had one. Non-Catholics think we're foolish for letting a mere man intercede for us in the sacrament of reconciliation because they've never experienced it. They say that God already knows their sins. They don't have to express them to another human being. They've never experienced it. They just don't get it.
You can't explain Eucharistic Adoration to a non-Catholic because they don't get the Real Presence.
That's why it can be difficult to evangelize our faith to non-Catholics and even to some fallen-away Catholics who don't really understand exactly what it is that they're falling away from. We're stuck with intellectual arguments to define a FAITH. And what is faith? It's the ability to accept something that can't be proven. We all have faith in something, don't we? We have faith that that semi-truck heading towards us at 70 miles per hour is going to stay in its own lane. We have faith that the ones we love will never leave us. We have faith that our team will win the World Series, or the Super Bowl, or the Stanley Cup, even though common sense tells us otherwise. We seem to have no problem having faith in science or human nature, or human skill, but some of us just can't get our minds around faith in an all-powerful, all-loving God.
But, not only do we have to have faith in God, we're called to share that faith with others. All three readings today point to that fact. The first reading and the Gospel are about loving your neighbor. In the second reading, St. Paul writes to the Thessalonians, "For from you the word of the Lord has sounded forth not only in Macedonia and in Achaia, but in every place your faith in God has gone forth, so that we have no need to say anything."
Maybe that's the key. You can't experience the faith until you have the faith. Maybe by showing OUR faith, that's how we can share it with others. We can quote "chapter and verse", we can make all the logical arguments, but chances are we'll fail in our evangelization most of the time. On the other hand, if our friends and family actually see us living the faith, that might be the thing that lets them see exactly what our faith is.
Let me repeat that quote from St. Paul. It's important. "For from you the word of the Lord has sounded forth not only in Macedonia and in Achaia, but in every place your faith in God has gone forth, so that we have no need to say anything." So, St. Paul, the man who did more to teach the faith than anyone who ever lived, the man whose words define the faith, believed that the faith of the Thessalonians was enough--that where their faith had spread, he didn't have to say anything.
Wouldn't it be nice if people would say that about us. How can we make that happen. Jesus tells us in today's Gospel.
"You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.....You shall love your neighbor as yourself."
Like Mary showed us by visiting that small Irish village, maybe we don't have to say anything.
posted by Mike at 9:35 AM
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