The most recent example involved a family that said that when they stood in their yard and looked up at a window on the second floor, they could see Mary’s image in the refracted light on the glass.
There were other instances—including one that for a while drew hundreds of people to a home in Monmouth County, creating a significant traffic problem—in which the accounts included communications from the mother of Jesus.
And, of course, we all occasionally read or hear stories in the news in which people have encountered Mary and Jesus himself, often in the most unexpected places.
I was reminded of all these episodes recently when I read a story in “Our Sunday Visitor Newsweekly” about the continuing controversy over the apparitions of the Blessed Virgin that have been reported for the past 36 years in Medjugorje, a village in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Many folks accept the statements by a group of villagers that Mary has made regular appearances there and engaged in dialogue with some people.
There have also been many reports of healings, vocations, and conversions connected with Mary’s appearances.
There have also been bitter conflicts among well-meaning people who either do or do not believe that Mary appears in Medjugorje.
The Church has authorized investigations of these reports but has reached no conclusion, although Pope Francis, on the one hand, has not formally dismissed the visions but, on the other hand, has expressed the personal opinion that Mary does not appear in the village.
Apparitions, particularly of the Virgin Mary, are a part of the tradition of the Church; this year is the centennial of one of the most famous of them, the appearances of the Blessed Mother to the three children at Fatima in Portugal.
My view of this subject in general is that apparitions are possible, though I leave it to others to determine if this or that vision was legitimate.
The topic always reminds me, though, of the comment Jesus made to Thomas the Apostle, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed,” and his remark to the royal official in Cana, “Unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe.”
Jesus reminded us repeatedly that he was calling us to faith that was based on his authoritative teaching, his example, and his passion, death, and resurrection.
Many scholars tell us that even the miracles Jesus himself performed during his lifetime were acts of compassion, not means of dazzling people into belief.
It isn’t as though those of us—and that means most of us—who have never seen Jesus or Mary in a windowpane or a grotto are somehow deprived of their presence.
On the contrary, Mary is accessible to us in prayer, and Jesus is accessible to us in prayer, in the Eucharist, and in his mystical body—the Church.
We can call on Mary or any saint for comfort and intercession, and we can achieve a loving, personal relationship with Jesus without the spectacle of public apparitions.
In fact, we can better open ourselves to the reality of the holy and the divine in the calm and quiet of meditation and worship.
The Hebrew Scripture tells us that it wasn’t in the wind or the earthquake or the fire that God called Elijah; it was in a still, small voice—a voice that calls each of us all the time and waits only to hear the answer, “Here I am.”
This post was first published in The Catholic Spirit, the newspaper of the Diocese of Metuchen. The writer is a permanent deacon in the diocese and managing editor at RENEW International.