Today is the feast of St. Philip Neri, who reluctantly accepted priestly ordination and reluctantly submitted his prayer groups to canonical establishment, now known as the Congregation of the Oratory. With invincible joy and simplicity, he largely converted the corrupt Church in Rome of his day (the Medici Popes et al.) back to heartfelt faith in God. I tried to start an Oratory here in San Francisco ten years ago but it was not to be. St. Philip, Apostle of Joy, pray for us!
I grew up 90 minutes from the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC, and Mom would often take us there to wander about the vast interior. Lining the perimeter of this massive church are dozens of side altars, each portraying an apparition of Our Lady from a different country. When I became pastor of a large fixer upper in San Francisco eleven years ago, I had a problem on my hands. Not only the physical church was deteriorating, but the community itself was fading away. How could I restore both what was once a splendid church and a vibrant parish community? I figured I’d better keep it simple, so I would simply give the people Jesus and Mary: Eucharistic adoration and the rosary. The church seated 1000 people, but only 85 were coming to Mass, so I made one of the side rooms into a Eucharistic chapel, and I replaced 200 seats with 16 side altars to the apparitions of Our Lady.
The Mother of all apparitions, especially on the American continent, is her visit to the center point of both North and South America in 1531. She called herself “Guadalupe.” In drawing up plans for her altar, I came across two curious facts.
First, one best “reads” the complex and beautiful image on Juan Diego’s tilma from a distance. Details of the image are sharpest when viewed from twenty feet back; colors seem pale close-up but become fully vibrant at a distance; and the image itself appears reduced when one is near, but becomes larger than life at a distance.
Second, an analysis from the University of Florida in 1979 discovered that the eyes of the image reflect light rays, as in a living human eye. The image itself is dynamic, as if it were alive, or at least the moving representation of a living person. In much the same way, analysis of the blood in various Eucharistic Miracles, such as that in Lanciano in the year 740, reveals living white blood cells, which cannot survive the death of the organism. The images and relics of Jesus and Mary themselves are dynamic. In 2006 a priest brought the relic of St. John Vianny—his heart enclosed in a glass case, to my parish in Modesto. Vianney died in 1859, but the day we brought the relic of his heart to a dying person in my parish, it began to sweat in the hot summer weather. How could a 150-year-old human heart still sweat unless that heart is still alive?
With these thoughts I begin my book on Our Lady’s apparitions, which I will complete during my 90-day sabbatical beginning June 15. The book will consider all the approved apparitions of Our Lady “from a distance,” looking at the common themes and events surrounding these apparitions from the year 50 (Our Lady of the Pillar in Spain) to 1983 (Our Lady of Kibeho in Rwanda). One doesn’t know if a book is worth writing until one writes it, so today I begin!
I grew up 90 minutes from the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC, and Mom would often take us there to wander about the vast interior. Lining the perimeter of this massive church are dozens of side altars, each portraying an apparition of Our Lady from a different country. When I became pastor of a large fixer upper in San Francisco eleven years ago, I had a problem on my hands. Not only the physical church was deteriorating, but the community itself was fading away. How could I restore both what was once a splendid church and a vibrant parish community? I figured I’d better keep it simple, so I would simply give the people Jesus and Mary: Eucharistic adoration and the rosary. The church seated 1000 people, but only 85 were coming to Mass, so I made one of the side rooms into a Eucharistic chapel, and I replaced 200 seats with 16 side altars to the apparitions of Our Lady.
The Mother of all apparitions, especially on the American continent, is her visit to the center point of both North and South America in 1531. She called herself “Guadalupe.” In drawing up plans for her altar, I came across two curious facts.
First, one best “reads” the complex and beautiful image on Juan Diego’s tilma from a distance. Details of the image are sharpest when viewed from twenty feet back; colors seem pale close-up but become fully vibrant at a distance; and the image itself appears reduced when one is near, but becomes larger than life at a distance.
Second, an analysis from the University of Florida in 1979 discovered that the eyes of the image reflect light rays, as in a living human eye. The image itself is dynamic, as if it were alive, or at least the moving representation of a living person. In much the same way, analysis of the blood in various Eucharistic Miracles, such as that in Lanciano in the year 740, reveals living white blood cells, which cannot survive the death of the organism. The images and relics of Jesus and Mary themselves are dynamic. In 2006 a priest brought the relic of St. John Vianny—his heart enclosed in a glass case, to my parish in Modesto. Vianney died in 1859, but the day we brought the relic of his heart to a dying person in my parish, it began to sweat in the hot summer weather. How could a 150-year-old human heart still sweat unless that heart is still alive?
With these thoughts I begin my book on Our Lady’s apparitions, which I will complete during my 90-day sabbatical beginning June 15. The book will consider all the approved apparitions of Our Lady “from a distance,” looking at the common themes and events surrounding these apparitions from the year 50 (Our Lady of the Pillar in Spain) to 1983 (Our Lady of Kibeho in Rwanda). One doesn’t know if a book is worth writing until one writes it, so today I begin!
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