Bishop Zumarraga, that is, in a re-enactment of the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe and St. Juan Diego, that WWD's school produced Friday night for our parish. The play was part of a big fiesta celebrating Our Lady's appearance to Juan Diego on December 12, 1531.
Since JPD chose St. Juan Diego as his costume for the All Saints' Day party this year, we've been studying the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe in depth around here. What a beautiful, hopeful story!
When I became Catholic, I just had no idea about Marian Apparitions. Honestly, for a long time I thought they seemed a bit strange. But now that I've been blessed to learn more about them, they are absolutely amazing! God is really, truly, still so much at work in our world in every way, big and small.
And now, as of this week, the first-ever Marian apparition in the U.S. has been officially approved--in Wisconsin! I think I see a road trip in our near future!
Why was it easier for my Protestant self to believe that God appeared to Moses on Mt. Sinai, or in the burning bush, or to Noah, or an Angel to St. Joseph in his dreams, than to believe that Our Lady would bring a message to someone in contemporary times? I think the contemporary times part is the difficulty. The Old Testament seems so long ago, so fuzzy, so pre-literate, that it seems easier to accept, even in a sort of non-literal, allegorical way. After all, we're taught those Old Testament stories from birth--my babies' nursery was even decorated with a sweet little Noah's Ark motif. But I haven't seen Our Lady of Fatima bedding at Babies 'R Us lately, have you? And besides, thinking about things from a sola scriptura viewpoint does make it a bit difficult to think about anything God might do after New Testament times, I suppose.
Another stumbling block, of course, is that quite often since the time of Jesus, God speaks to us using the Blessed Virgin as a messenger, and naturally this is the part I didn't understand as a Protestant. I'm still in amazed wonder, learning about Catholic Marian theology. With her freely given consent, God used Mary to bring Christ into our world, and He's still using her to bring us to him today.
Now that I'm Catholic, I've learned about so many post-New Testament direct interventions by God in our world through the centuries. Fatima, Lepanto, St. Dominic, Lourdes, Guadalupe, St. Faustina...and on and on. What I love is that they are so relevant, so hope-filled, so instructive, so far beyond what I could ever imagine. Clearly, God's plan of salvation for us--begun the split second that Adam and Eve tasted the apple so long ago--is still unfolding. Miracles are happening everywhere--even in Wisconsin (yippee!)!!
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