I have zero desire to make a pilgrimage to Fatima or Lourdes. Apparitions are far too spooky for my rational mind set. I’ve always held that the “Dormition” of Mary is far more palatable than her bodily transportation to the Gates of Heaven. I prefer myth when it comes to such matters. The infallible pronouncement of Pius 12 happened when I was 8 years old, and I wondered even then how something this momentous could be hidden, unrecognized for such a long period of time. I said the rosary every day when I was in a Jesuit house of formation. We all did. I liked the repetition of the words of a simple prayer and the contemplation of the mysteries which I took to be more like visualizations of scenes from the stories told in Matthew, Mark and Luke (John is a bit too gnostic). As far as my Marian faith goes, I was a pretty stripped down basic gospel kind of guy. Some of this can be traced back to my Calvinist heritage, my father was a Yankee free thinker, and there's some rebellion against the rigid Irish nuns who taught the Baltimore Catechism by rote.
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| By Erik Cleves Kristensen - House of the Virgin Mary |
When Ashish and I visited Ephesus, after tromping through the amazing Roman ruins, we took a small jitney several kilometers high up into the bluffs overlooking the ancient harbor to what is known as Mother Mary’s House. According to legend, Saint John, the gnostic one, took Mary to the small community that Paul had founded in that Roman colony after the death of Jesus. She was to spend the rest of her days protected from the turmoil of James’s Jerusalem Church. Of course her presence also legitimized the ascent of the Jesus congregations of Greeks and Romans who were not observant of Jewish law and customs, but I will leave that side for polemicists to hash out.
It had been more than 35 years since I left the Jesuits and 30 years of practicing Buddhist meditation when I got on that small rickety bus. I’m just giving some background about the mindset of the guy who headed up Mt. Koressos (Turkish: Bülbüldağı, "Mount Nightingale") to the place that Saint Anne Catherine Emmerich had seen in visions as the last earthly abode of Mary the Virgin.
It fit the parameters of a place that I could envision for the house of Mother Mary. Being there was simply wonderful, peaceful, with a real feeling of the Transcendent. No throngs of the faithful seeking miracles, no massive basilicas commemorating a Saint’s vision, no sellers of Marian trinkets and memorabilia. There were perhaps a dozen religious women, maybe less, quietly tending simple gardens and very austere shrines. We wandered where we wanted, stopped when we felt the urge. No one exhorted us, telling us what to believe or how to pray. There were few votary candle boxes like the ones I remember from the Irish parishes of my youth in front of Saint Mary’s statues. There was only one donation box near the exit.
I felt a real sense of freedom when I boarded that rickety little bus for the scary ride down back to Selçuk. I had been in the presence of the Virgin and my mind was allowed the space to take whatever tack was appropriate for the time and place.
