I heard about Medjugorje in the early 1980’s. For me the eighties still as a fading photograph evoke a mysticism, fogging my memory about specific instances of time or places, like the tuning of instruments, just before the music begins, or many dawns and dusks, when the change in temperature across snow creates a cloud, rising above the surface. The time I spent learning about self-hypnotism, yoga, meditation, tracing the lines across my palm, was about trying to read the future. I read a paperback copy of Nostradamus’ “The Prophecies”. I recall that the words tickled my imagination with dreamlike settings and characters as I tried to mix and match historical events, with current events, and whatever might happen next. It was around that time that I heard about Medjugorje, and noted the similarities between the legend of Our Lady of Fatima, Our Lady of Guadalupe, and Our Lady of Medjugorje. Similar or not, each story became fused in my mind. Yet distinctly, the exegetical remarks of a few children, in what would become Herzegovinia, was about the future – a future that was almost, already predictable, but only in the most abstract way. It should be said that I began to have doubts about Catholicism long before I watched a video about Medjugorje – most of all, I doubted the existence of Hell. Something about a merciful God flooding the Earth, or (almost as if he were some kind of horrible clown, teasing) requesting Abraham to sacrifice a child, or requiring the sacrifice of anything for sinfulness as if sinfulness incurs a figurative debt ratio – per sheep, Jesus, Mohammed, or whatever... There was something about that, which I doubted. But, I didn’t doubt the video footage of children, who, looking up into the air, praying and talking as if someone, unseen to everyone else, was there. I didn’t doubt what I watched on a video. I watched children, looking up, praying, almost as if transfixed, talking to the air above them. I attended speech by a deacon about that; but, I do not recall if he spoke about Our Lady of Fatima, or Guadalupe, or Medjugorje – only that he gave away crosses blessed by Pope John Paul II, as well as little square pieces of cloth sewn to a necklace with a dedication written on the front of the cloth, dedicated to Francis of Assisi. He also spoke about roses, and flowers, and I (then) loved flowers, even if I did not want to admit that to just anyone. Intermittent conversations about this (excluding my love of flowers) lasted for weeks. Most of my friends were not Catholic, and so there was the usual we-don’t-worship-Mary-or-saints reply. As much as I wanted to talk about this with someone, very few people were as interested in what seemed to be an epiphany for me. So, I decided to talk with someone who would share my interests. So, I searched and decided. I found someone I respected, and I spoke excitedly and almost out-of-breath with a Dominican Priest about Mary, and the children from Yugoslavia, and the possible end of the U.S.S.R., and the Iron Curtain, and nuclear proliferation, and... And, I realized that the person who stood before me was very calm. His round face, which appeared to me like the Moon (how I did love the Moon, then and now), was more than calm. He was disinterested. I asked him if he believed in “Our Lady of Medjugorje.” And, he, basically, said, “No.” I asked him, “How can that be?” With the video footage, and what had been written, with the scientists who had examined the children, with the corroborated testimonials, how could anyone not believe, particularly a priest? The priest –who listened carefully and patiently to my many verbose questions– replied with as much patience. Thinking back on that moment, I can honestly say that when I think about the dialog written by Dostoyevsky about a Grand Inquisitor, I think about that moment like the fiction; it is as if the moment was a fiction; the Dominican Priest, who listened to me so patiently and so calmly and with such disinterest was in the reverse-role; it is as if I, innocently, played the role of the Grand Inquisitor. The Dominican Priest said that it was merely his personal opinion. His disbelief was merely a personal opinion. I’m certain that the expression on my face was not just one of disbelief but one of shock, for he just as quickly added that since I believed, then that was a blessing. It was, he explained, a blessing for me to believe. And, that was, I think, one of the first moments when I began to question, in earnest, the meaning for the word, ‘universal’, including the word ‘everything’. It was, we could say, the spark of a moment, just before I would eventually realized something. It was the beginning of a concept that I would thoroughly research. We could characterize what I thought about. We could say that the concept that struck me –in the opposite way that an epiphany might strike someone...– that the concept I began to think about was characteristically the opposite of an archetype.
Posted on: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 02:24:18 +0000