Teenagers are rather adept at pushing the envelope, and I was no exception when I was in high school—although I was rather quiet about it. I relished in finding novels that had been banned and reading them to find out what was so explicit (it turns out that D.H. Lawrence and Toni Morrison weren’t quite as salacious as I had hoped them to be.) I took this quiet rebellion with me into the classroom. I wish I could remember precisely what the research project rubric was that Sister Carol assigned to us in our Moral Theology class, but I do remember that I decided to use shock value as my mode of delivery: I was going to present different forms of fortune-telling and divination to my classmates. Palmistry, tarot cards, astrology, Ouija, ESP…I left no stone unturned in my list of topics to research.
Back then, research wasn’t available from home at the click of a button, so the library was required for such tasks. I felt terribly grown-up as I drove myself to the brand-new local library, and stood before the computerized subject catalogue. I typed in the broadest search term I could think of in order to get the most information possible: occult. The results in a blocky, yellow-orange typeface quickly appeared against the black screen and offered me two choices:
the occult
the occult, and the Catholic Church
I blinked. My church is so cool that it has its own occult. Of course I immediately chose
the occult, and the Catholic Church
What I discovered changed the course of my understanding of Jesus—and His mother—for the rest of my life.
“The occult” is the way the library categorized the many accounts of the apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It’s not so surprising when you look at the definition of the word “occult.” Merriam-Webster defines it as “matters regarded as involving the action or influence of supernatural or supernormal powers or some secret knowledge of them.” People claiming to have seen and had conversations with Our Lady certainly fall under the umbrella of the supernatural because these experiences are outside the normal range of day-to-day life.
I dove head-first into accounts of apparitions like Guadalupe, Garabandal, Lourdes, Fatima, Betania, and Medjugorje. There are even accounts of apparitions in my own hometown! Some accounts are verified, or approved by Catholic Church authorities, and some, like the ones in Medjugorje and Boise, are not.
Church approval simply means that the Catholic Bishop overseeing the diocese in which the apparition occurred has studied the phenomenon with the aid of theologians, psychologists, scientists, and other applicable authorities and experts, often from either an atheistic or non-Catholic background in order to be able to declare the authenticity of the apparition and its accompanying message.
It cannot be overemphasized that, regardless of whether the Church authenticates a specific apparition, the faithful are by no means obligated to “believe in it.” It also is true that no person is barred from belief in a specific un-approved apparition, just that the message it carries has not been fully vetted against Biblical truths (and therefore Church teaching), or that the messages are not deemed to be supernatural in origin or nature.
What do the messages of Our Lady offer, then? Having occurred at many places around the globe throughout the last two millennia, and having appeared to people of varied ages, genders, and cultures, the details are distinct but the overall message boils down to the same thing: she instructs her visionaries to turn against sin and toward her Son.
In 1531 Guadalupe, she appeared to fifty-seven-year-old Juan Diego upon Tepeyac hill, which had been a sanctuary for the Aztec goddess Tonanzin. Her message? She said, “Know and understand well, you the most humble of my son, that I am the ever virgin Holy Mary, Mother of the True God for whom we live, of the Creator of all things, Lord of heaven and the earth.”
In 1858 Lourdes, she appeared to fourteen-year-old Bernadette Soubirous at the base of the Pyrenees Mountains in France. “I am the Immaculate Conception,” she announced. Her request? To love her Son, to pray for the conversion of sinners, and to do penance for sin.
In 1915 Fatima, a Portuguese village named for the daughter of Islam’s Muhammed, she appeared to three children: Lucia (age eight), Francisco (age seven), and Jacinta (age five). There, she gave the children visions of the afterlife: Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell. She explained to the children that prayer, penance, and fasting could change the future for the better. Her instruction? Pray the rosary, since the rosary is simply a meditation on the life and miracles of Jesus, her Son.
The Blessed Mother is the most insistent of all matchmaking Jewish mothers: she reaches out to us in friendship, and declares, “Do I have a Son for you!” Although her messages are offered to specific visionaries, at specific times, and in specific cultures, her words and truths are genuinely for each one of us. Not only is Jesus truly God and truly human, He loves us each intimately and wants us to choose Him. It is His mother’s job to invite us to Him when we stray.
As for the occult, I no longer felt the impulse to shock people and delve into false practices with such an ocean of the supernatural within my own faith tradition! Through Mary's guidance, I found my way to the love and friendship of her Son, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, Pray for us sinners.
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