Visits of the
Virgin Mary - And the Millennium
Rev. Gise J. VanBaren
Recent news reports speak of a
reflection said to be of the Virgin Mary on the windows of the Seminole
Finance Corp. in Clearwater, Fl. The account brought to mind similar
reports made in the past.
I recall being in a campground, years ago, tenting next to a Roman
Catholic family. The man joined us at our campfire and promptly began
telling of his own encounter with the Virgin Mary. He claimed to have
been at a site where the Virgin Mary had repeatedly appeared. While he
was there, it had happened. The Virgin Mary came and spoke to certain
individuals who were sponsors of this, event. How did he know that the
Virgin Mary had in fact appeared? He did not see her - but there was the
smell of roses. And the rosaries of those present had turned into gold.
Sadly, the man had forgotten his own rosary. It lay in his dresser
drawer. But when he returned home, lo, the rosary also had changed into
gold!
The old tales are still being repeated - and with increasing frequency.
The Denver Post, December 21, 1996, records details of one of the latest
incidents:
Some say that when the Virgin Mary
comes down, they smell roses. Some say they see the sun wheeling in
the sky. When she appears, some see her blue robe shimmer.
Some say she turns the chains of their rosaries to gold.
When the Blessed Virgin comes to Donna Pendleton, the young mother
from this rural part of Maryland. says, Mary just slips quietly into
her heart.
Nothing "like a lightning bolt," says Pendleton, whose
face is radiant as she stands on the dark sidewalk outside St.
Joseph's Church.
Her visit feels like "a tingle," says Pendleton, who wears
her little boy's crystal rosary around her neck, inside her ski
jacket. Then "everything opens up and becomes clearer."
Snow may or may not come this night to Emmitsburg, a town with one
street light, surrounded by farms. Pendleton thinks not.
But the Virgin Mary will be here, because this is a Thursday and she
comes every Thursday night, believers say. Pendleton is one of the
many who regularly flock to this gray stucco church to hear her
weekly message and feel her mysterious presence.
With incense and candles burning, they gather in the sanctuary and
murmur "Hail Mary" after "Hail Mary," the beads
of their rosaries slipping through their fingers as they wait.
In these times of sin and confusion, in these days of approaching
millennium, believers say the Mother of God is visiting Earth with
increasing regularity.
"Oh yeah," says David Zappardino, a musician and a regular
here at St. Joseph's Church, "... she is part of the
plan."
... The Bible contains sparse references to the mother of Jesus, but
that has not stopped scholars from delving the Scriptures for
clues to her character. And it has
not stopped generations of devotees from shaping her to their
disparate needs.
She's been portrayed as both virgin and mother, saint and fertility
goddess. She's ridden to battle with the Crusaders and rallied the
followers of labor organizer Cesar Chavez. She is Notre Dame, lady
of all the cathedrals of France, and La Morenita, the dark little
Virgin of Guadalupe, midwife of peasant mothers throughout Latin
America.
She is the patroness of legions of unchurched spiritual searchers
and she also receives the daily devotions of Pope John Paul II. The
pope says that in 1981, Mary saved him from an assassin's bullet,
noting the attempt on his life came on the anniversary of her 1917
appearance to three children in Fatima, Portugal ...
What is striking is not so
much the increasing number of "appearances" of the Virgin Mary
as this millennium comes to its close, but the increasing number of
people who believe such things. Many see the "image" of Mary
on windows of buildings; they "smell the roses" when Mary
shows herself; individuals claim that Mary speaks to them and reveals
secrets of future events.
This surely is another of the signs of the end, when people are ready to
believe that which is so very contrary to Scripture. The Post itself
remarks upon the fact that "the Bible contains sparse references to
the mother of Jesus ..." Those who know Scripture ought to recall
the emphasis of the apostle Paul, who insisted that he "determined
to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified" (I
Cor. 2:2). No mention of "roses" or "golden
rosaries" or secret messages from the blessed Virgin. Scripture
emphasizes not Mary but Christ. It has been the design of the devil to
turn people from the cross to some alternative. But even the Virgin Mary
is no alternative to the cross. There is but one way to God and that is
through His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Originally published in the Standard
Bearer, volume 73, issue 10, 15 February, 1997.
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