My childhood memory is of going into an old apple orchard and cutting off branches that held blossoms, putting these in jars or vases on the window cill near a statue of Mary. (We did not do Maypole dances.) What might have been especially special was the knowing that honoring Mary was honoring mothers, perhaps all females, and that we were girls.
Since the 100th anniversary of the Miracle at Fatima - Portugal is upon us, there's been a lot of news about this event. There wasn't just one sighting, there were a series of meetings back in 1917. The World War I era.
If you're interested in listening to a recent program about the controversial "3rd Secret" you might want to go to YouTube and search for Coast to Coast AM - Fatima. - Guest Peter Levenda.
First check the story by Joseph Ronechen concerning the miraculously untangled rosaries.
NATIONAL CATHOLIC REGISTER - EYEWITNESS of THE DAY THE SUN DANCED
TEASER/EXCERPT: The woman continued her miracle story. “People put their rosaries on the ground. They knew what way the Blessed Mother would face, and they put their rosaries out there in front of the place. [The pile of] rosaries were shaped like a cross. [After the apparition] There were so many that when everybody went to get their rosaries, they were all tangled up. And they were trying to find the right rosary.
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Of course it's said that 70,000 people assembled to see the Miracle of the sun dancing in the sky. (I do wonder about the size of the crowd simply because sometimes these estimates grow through the years.) Many people have since thought that maybe this was a UFO, specifically an alien spaceship and that the Blessed Mother apparition was either a hologram, the actual Blessed Mother (perhaps in her energy rather than corporeal body), or an alien acting as a Blessed Mother. These science oriented skeptics of course think there is some conspiracy with the Catholic Church. With a massive world wide number of Catholics, what a great way to get the message across that Russia would need to go back to being prayerful and Catholic?
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What does it take to become a Catholic Saint? Martyrdom for the Faith, a life of amazingly impactful works, or - the clincher - miracles of healing attributed to you. Two of the Fatima children, who died not long after the apparitions, which was one of the things the Blessed Mother told the children, have been canonized by Pope Francis.
NATIONAL CATHOLIC REGISER : FRANCISCO and JACINTA of FATIMA CANNONIZED
EXCERPT: Pope Francis on Saturday officially declared Francisco and Jacinta Marto saints of the Catholic Church in front of hundreds of thousands of pilgrims at the Fatima Shrine in Portugal — teaching that even young children can become saints.
“For the honor of the Blessed Trinity, the exaltation of the Catholic faith and the increase of the Christian life, by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the holy apostles Peter and Paul, and our own, after due deliberation and frequent prayer for divine assistance, and having sought the counsel of many of our brother bishops, we declare and define Blesseds Francisco Marto and Jacinta Marto to be saints,” Pope Francis exclaimed May 13 as the crowd roared with applause.
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Every day there seems to be another announcement of the discovery of another planet or moon of a planet that has the chemistry that we think is necessary for some form of life - even if it be tiny microbes. So to me it is entirely possible that we are not alone in the universe. And if there are beings like us, then the Creator must have created them too. But are they Good Guys or Bad Guys? Do they want to help us earthlings advance scientifically or spiritually? If they're visiting our planet, I sure hope so!
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MEDJUGORJE ORG
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC - THE CULT OF MARY
I was disappointed in this Documentary from National Geographic, but maybe it's because I expected a broader meaning of the world CULT. This one focused on a particular cult associated with the years long visions of Mary and devotion to her in Medjugorgie. Now, I'm afraid of cults because I've known people who got into them and never seemed to get out. It was clear they had gone through some sort of dramatic change in which they turned their backs on everything they used to believe. However, while the particular group that this film focused on does seem to have cult features, most likely what came first is a person's utter devotion to Blessed Mother of Jesus, Mary. Some people are concerned that since Mary is not considered divine, that this is displaced loyalty, since the focus should be Jesus.
That said, consider all the people in the world who are not Christians of any sort and how weird they must think Christians are. It's easy for Non-Catholic Christians to condemn any sort of saint worship. There are those who think that even Jesus is a small player in the Great scheme of things, that prayer is to go directly to his Father, GOD.
Ah well, this cult is tame compared to what you've read about Scientology. People give up everything they own and are to spend most of their days in the worship of Mary, along with some every day work, just like so many orders of Nuns, Priests, Sisters, Monks, Monastics.
There is a long tradition of that. The people are not locked up. They can drive away. They don't. So what we're talking about is not wanting to or fearing it.
So why didn't national Geographic properly title this DVD to be something like "A Blessed Mother Cult in Medjugorgie." because this is NOT a film about the worship of Mary throughout Catholicism, nor does it discuss other cults, or other Holy Orders who have spent much of their time in prayer, meditation, or Gregorian chants.
As a side, there is also a film bonus called "The Secret Lives of Jesus." I'm not one to think that if Jesus did spend time in India learning from Hindus or Buddhists there before he began his preaching at age 30, that it's a bad thing. However, after the Dan Brown fiction novels that so many Catholic haters have referenced, thinking the fiction is fact, I'm sensitive to the issue of Catholic's being understood accurately.
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