Freaky Friday 6 - Mary Sightings

Writing these Freaky Friday posts is a double-edged sword. On one hand I like the opportunity to reflect on some of these ‘mysteries’ and to get the opinions of readers alike. On the other hand, I feel unqualified to talk about some of this stuff; in some cases even to give my opinion as I haven’t thought through the subject entirely to have a well-formed opinion on the matter. Maybe I shouldn’t even write until I’ve done that (thought it through), but who has time to sit for an hour and think about what-if’s?

So forgive me if my analysis is far from complete and my limited examples paint a small snapshot of the whole picture.

A subject that fascinates me are the [supposed] apparitions of Mary around the world. I’ve attended private, Christian-based schools my entire life and this was a subject presented as fact though lightly covered. In grade school we had Mary Day where a lucky 8th grader would crown the virgin with a wreath of flowers and ribbons while the whole school would sing Ave Maria in the “grotto” area between the school and church. That being a song that really touches me and the sentiment being so pure, this was always one of my favorite parts of the school year.

I know this’ll make me sound kind of dumb, but when I was young I used to pray for Mary to come to me. For some unknown reason in my mind I chalked my own mother up to be inaccessible for conversations on topics as important as getting your period. Surely the 2000 year old Mother of God would be more in touch. I promised to never tell anyone if she came and for a long while I believed that she actually might if I prayed hard and intently enough. I'm sad to report that she never showed.

I'm sure you’ve heard over the years of every-day items that look like the Holy Lady – water marks under bridges, toasted images in hamburger buns, window smears, etc. All of these I chalk up to coincidence and over-active imaginations, much like the game we play as children trying to spot a likeness in cloud shapes.

I also wondered if other religions had sightings of their leaders (Mohammad, etc). After several searches on Yahoo! and Google I didn’t find any articles about this at all.

As recently as this year one of the sightings by a shepherd-girl has been validated as real. Through the years several have been approved and dozens more are still under investigation by the Catholic church. In doing a little research for this post it seems that most of these sightings are to children. Some more than one child have seen (ie Fatima), others it’s just one girl seeing the light/woman and others around her see nothing at all. Some times it’s not a sighting that’s reported but a crying or bleeding statue. Still, approved or not, whole presence or just tears, people come in droves to make pilgrimages and pay their respect to the location where Mary once was.

I’ve never been to one of these places before. I’ve never been anywhere that I felt a real religious presence/peace. I think the lack of this is what still keeps me questioning a lot of religion in general. I have had moments of feeling my place in the universe as a whole. I experienced this thoroughly one night on a retreat in college and have never forgotten what that sensation was like.

So, at the end of the day, do I buy into Mary coming back to Earth for visits? When I watched the YouTube posted video of the crying statue (see link above) it gave me chills. I can't explain it. I'm assuming this was untailored video but how do I know? This skepticism is what leads me to say that if I had to give a black and white answer I’d say no, I don't fully believe. But I’d really really like to.