Feast of the Visitation

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/053117.cfm
Zephaniah 3:14-18
Luke 1:39-56

This past April Jill and I went to Kauai for a birthday/anniversary celebration.  One of the sights we saw was the Kilauea lighthouse known for its characteristic double blink and for its involvement in an historic event.  

In the 1920s Mr. Dole of Dole Pineapple offered a reward for the first person to fly from mainland USA to Hawaii.  In 1927 two men of the Army Air Corp accepted the challenge and were given permission to make the attempt.  Lt. Albert Hegenberger and Lt. Lester Maitland, an experienced long distance pilot left from San Francisco and had a mostly uneventful flight until they ran into some bad weather.  Since they were navigating by compass and star sightings the weather prevented the navigator from getting a fix on the stars.  They attempted to fly over the clouds but the wings began icing and they were forced back to flying below the clouds.  At this point they had no idea where they were other than somewhere over the Pacific.  Suddenly the navigator spotted the double blink of the Kilauea lighthouse beacon and from there calculated the way to Honolulu.  This resulted in the first successful trans-Pacific flight.  The word beacon is the key word of this discussion.

In today’s gospel reading we see Elizabeth who is pregnant with John the Baptist greeting her cousin Mary with:

“Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” 

This greeting is remembered every time we say the first part of the Hail Mary.  

Mary quickly responds with what we now call the Magnificat.  The first part of this beautiful response is:

“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord;
My spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
For He has looked with favor on His lowly servant.
From this day all generations shall call me blessed:
The Almighty has done great things for me,
And Holy is His name.”

Notice that Mary redirects Elizabeth to giving praise to our Lord just as the beacon of the lighthouse redirected the flight over the Pacific to their final destination.  That is what Mary did then and what she is doing to this day.  In the past, there have been some phenomenal apparitions of Mary and in every case her purpose was to lead us to our God.  Of course there have been many apparitions since the resurrection of Christ. I will go over a few of these that I find particularly interesting.

Five hundred years ago she appeared to a poor South American native, Juan Diego.  She asked him to go to the Bishop and tell him he is to build a cathedral in Guadalupe.  I cannot imagine myself going to a bishop and telling him he must build a cathedral anywhere.  His first few visits were totally fruitless.  However, through the miracle of her image on a simple tilma, she brought the bishop to his knees and the cathedral was built.  As a result thousands were converted to Christianity in a land considered as heathen by some of the missionaries.  In one day she accomplished more than any number of missionaries could have ever accomplished on their own.

In more recent times, 20th and 21st century, there have been an astounding number of apparitions.  Because of the advancement in the sciences, research has been able to closely study some of the ones I shall discuss.  However, the church does not necessarily approve an apparition simply because of examinations by scientists and doctors.  Unfortunately, scientific examinations cannot prove that what is being experienced by a visionary is supernatural.  They can only prove that what is happening cannot be explained through normal scientific studies.

In 1917 Our Lady appeared to 3 children in Fatima.  There she told the children that the church needed to consecrate the world to Her Immaculate Heart and that people should pray the rosary for the conversion of Russia.  If this did not happen there would be wars and Russia would spread her errors throughout the world.  To add veracity to the apparitions the children said that there would be a miracle for all to see.  On October 13, 1917 30,000 to 40,000 people gathered to watch the miracle.  There was a hard rain and the people were drenched.  When the skies cleared, the sun began to move around and appeared to head toward the earth.  Many thought this was the end of the world.  After the miracle, witnesses claimed their clothes and the ground were dry.  Shortly after the apparitions ended WWI broke out.  In addition Russia has spread her errors throughout the world just as had been predicted. There is debate to this day whether the church ever officially consecrated the world to Mary’s immaculate heart.  

In 1961 Mary appeared to four young girls in Garabandal, Spain.  Garabandal is a poor community whose only access was a three and a half mile oxcart path. Between 1961 and 1965 there were over 2000 apparitions of Mary to the children.  During the apparitions the children were unresponsive to pin pricks, being burned with the tip of hot matches, and blinding lights shined into their eyes.  When the traveling priest could not come to the village for Sunday mass the visionaries said that Michael the Archangel would give them the Eucharist.  On one occasion someone with an 8mm camera recorded a host appearing on one of the visionaries tongue.  The visionaries tell us that Mary asked us to make sacrifices, perform penance, lead a good life and visit the Blessed Sacrament frequently. Again we have Mary pointing us to our Lord.  There were prophecies associated with the apparitions.    

If you wish you can look them up on the internet.  They are very similar to the prophecies at Medjugorje.  The Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has not yet declared an opinion on authenticity of the apparitions.   In cases where prophecies are made the church will generally wait until the prophecies are fulfilled.  Sometimes approval by the church takes decades after the cessation of the apparitions.

http://www.garabandal.org/story.shtml

From 1968 to 1971 Mary appeared in Zeitoun, Egypt at erratic intervals and was viewed by an estimate of 500,000+ people.  She first appeared April 2, 1968 to a Muslim bus mechanic named Farouk Mohammed Atwa who worked across the street from St. Mark’s Coptic Church in Zeitoun.  He saw a young woman standing on top of the church and thought she was about to commit suicide.  A crowd gathered and it was apparent to them that what they were seeing was not a woman but, rather an image of a woman. The police came and tried to disperse the crowd, blaming the apparition on reflections from the street lights.  Too many people said they saw her clearly and refused to leave.  The apparitions were visible to anyone that was  present.  President Gamal Abdel Nasser was one of the witnesses of the apparition.  

Although Mary never said anything it was clear that her message was peace and drew many people to the cathedral.  There was a movement at the time to start targeting Christians.  After the apparitions the movement ceased.  There are numerous photos of the apparition and no explanation can be found for how her image could have been generated by human hand.  If you wish you can see photos and videos of the apparitions on the internet.

http://www.zeitun-eg.org/zeitoun1.htm

From 1981 to the present Mary has allegedly been appearing to six individuals at Medjugorje.  When this first started the ages of the visionaries ranged from ten to seventeen years old.  Medjugorje was still part of communist Yugoslavia so there was a lot of pressure put on the visionaries to admit they were lying about the visions.  The parish pastor spent two years in prison on the charge that he was trying to incite a revolution through the children.  The visionaries have never recanted their stand on the apparitions.  They are probably the most studied visionaries in history and there has yet to be any scientific proof that they are fabricating their visions of Mary.  There have been numerous psychological exams of the visionaries by both Christian and atheistic doctors and none have shown them to be anything other than normal.  They have been thoroughly examined by medical doctors during the apparitions with no findings indicating they are experiencing something such as hallucinations or seizures and has been proven that they are not under hypnosis.  Dr. Henri Joyeux, a hospital surgeon at the Cancer Institute of Montpellier, France, led a team of doctors and scientist to conduct extensive studies of the visionaries.  He found that when the apparitions begin the visionaries’ eyes all focus on the same spot in space and all normal eye movement ceases within milliseconds of each other.  They simultaneously go from a normal Beta state of consciousness to an Alpha state.  An Alpha state is considered to be a highly meditative state.  During an apparition they are moving their mouths as if they are speaking to someone but they emit no sound.  The exam showed that the lack of sound is due to an unexplained temporary paralysis of their larynx.  There were numerous other tests performed on them.  The end result is that Dr. Joyeux and his team have no reasonable scientific explanation of why or how this is happening to those visionaries.  Today, three of the visionaries experience daily apparitions.  Two of them have apparitions once a year.  The remaining visionary, Mirjana Soldo, experiences an apparition once a month.  The fundamental message given to the visionaries for the world over the last 36 years are:

1. Pray, especially the rosary and to pray for our shepherds

2. Fast on bread and water on Wednesdays and Fridays.  If you cannot do that then fast from whatever you can

3. Read Holy Scripture

4. Go to confession at least once a month

5. Go to mass and receive the Eucharist frequently

There are prophecies associated with these apparitions as well.  Again, if you are interested you can find them on the web or read any number of books.  My recommendation would be to read ‘My Heart Will Triumph’ written by Mirjana Soldo.  A commission has studied the events at Medjugorje.  On May 17, 2017, the results were published.  The first seven apparitions have been declared authentic.  The remaining apparitions are viewed favorably but were not authenticated.  There have only been around twelve apparitions authenticated by the Catholic Church and Medjugorje is one of them.  Also, until the report, pilgrimages were not allowed to be sponsored by the Church. That restriction has now been lifted.  Finally, the parish of Medjugorje has been declared a Pontifical Sanctuary.  That means that the parish is now under the direct supervision of the Vatican and is not answerable to its diocese of Mostar.  A special pastoral envoy of the Pope’s has gone to Medjugorje to study what needs to be done to help the parish accommodate the millions of pilgrims who go there.  If you wish to read the comments of the envoy or wish to read more on the report of the papal commission you can find them at medjugorje.org by clicking on their blog.

http://www.medjugorje.ws/en/apparitions/docs-scientific-research-medjugorje-visionaries/

http://www.medjugorje.org/

http://medjugorje-pilgrim.blogspot.com/2012/01/visionaries-are-normal-and-healthy.html

At the time of the visitation of Mary with her cousin Elizabeth, Mary reminds us through scripture to always turn to God, our creator.  Jesus, at the crucifixion, proclaimed Mary John’s mother and John her son.  Through this He made Mary the Mother of our church as well as our mother.  She is our beacon always pointing us back to our Lord.