The casual observer to the Emerald Isle may have noticed that people around here take their superstitions seriously - crossing yourself every time you pass a church, the multitudes of Mary-shrines bespeckling the landscape, the crucifixes on many a dashboard are all a bit of a tip-off that here, at any rate, there's a definite belief in divine intervention and that this should be outwardly and symbolically acknowledged. After all, it can't hurt.
But there are times when , if it weren't for the serious lack of sunshine, you could be forgiven for thinking that maybe you're not in Europe, but rather the inner reaches of the Congo.
A hundred years ago.
Times like, just drawing an example out of thin air here, last weekend when 15 000 people descended on the rural town of Knock (hence the irresistable title) to witness a vision of the Virgin Mary on the advice of Recession-Age Prophet Joe Coleman (and against the advice of the Catholic Church). Apparently, the Virgin Mary looks a lot like the sun, but allegedly the "true believer" can distinguish.
Of course, 15 000 is only a small minority in a country of 4 million, but it does highlight some issues of religion and faith, authority and miracles, especally since it has sparked a much wider debate in Ireland about the authenticity of visions and prophets that has reached virtually everyone, even me.
For me, it's basically just pitiful that people need to see an alleged authoritarian figure (according to Joe Coleman, Mary is angry with Catholics) to see a miracle in the sun.
After all we're on a ball of rock hurtling through space at a phenomenal speed around some other conveniently-placed ball of burning hydrogen, we don't really know how any of this got here or why there even are such things as time and space and consciousness, and yet we have food and water, air to breathe, amazing animals and plants, beautiful mountains, oceans, deserts, beaches, trees, flowers, rain, stars. When we examine these objects internally we see that they are made up of complex, ever smaller particles, when we examine them externally we discover an ever-growing multiverse of planets, galaxies and nebulae. When we search inside our own minds, we find ever new realizations and capabilities, when we push ourselves to grow, we increase our own abilities.
Whether or not you believe in God, I think you've got to admit that it's all a bit crazy, really.
So considering that we're surrounded by miracles twenty-four/seven, I'd say that anyone who has to go to Knock (or anywhere else) to see one is damn well blind to what's going on around them (probably even more so now after all that staring at the sun).
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Comments: 3
Then again at least they don't put a rag over their head, stick their butt up int the air 5 times a day or have obsessions with homemade bombs.
I don't think authoritarian Islam is any more enlightened than authoritarian Christianity, but I don't think it's necessarily less enlightened, either.
Certain Catholics around these parts are real experts in homemade bombs. You may have heard...
Though this particular vision was not Church-endorsed.
In fact, it's telling in itself that as the Catholic Church has cracked down on authorizing every stray vision/"miracle", it's been more or less replaced by those who are determined to see them, anyway, and whose leaders insist on inserting a "fear" ("Mary is angry") message. Apparently, if the Church is not interested in providing omens of doom, someone else will.
Obviously, the "sign" thing is not limited to Catholics, after all some Protestants believe in speaking in tongues, as well as "evangelical healing".
I'd, however, think that everyone would be a bit better off for observing the miracles around them once in a while, which generally speaking are a lot more amazing than a weeping statue and never come with the guilt/fear message attached.