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Thrift Store Graces
Martha makes me feel enormously guilty, which is reason enough to veer the other way whenever I see her coming. She visits Bosnia often, and the reason is simple: Mary, the Mother of God, has reportedly been appearing there every day since 1981 to a group of six people. These people—two young men and four young women—don’t just see Mary; they talk to her and she talks to them, and aside from that, all of them appear to be perfectly normal. Kind of like my fellow parishioner Martha. This situation makes a lot of us very nervous. The reason I am one of those nervous folks is solidly faithbased: Mary, the Mother of God, has been known to appear several times in history, and she doesn’t do so on a whim. Typically she is looking for some serious changes to take place among the faithful. In my Catholic upbringing and schooling, I have read about all these visitations, and I know that Mary does not mess around. She is not asking for a few more prayers, or extra coins in the offering plate. She is talking conversions, and confessions, and public displays of affection for God and all he represents. Mother Mary coming to us is not a good sign. It is like having the greatest lawyer in the world come to your house to offer you legal advice. Wonderful to have such excellent help, but it is also a sign of calamity. If I go to Bosnia, as Martha thinks I should, there are going to be consequences. There may have to be a deeper relationship between me and Mary, one that requires something from me, and I’m not sure I’m ready for that.