Peter CostelloThe 135th anniversary of the visions at Knock, which falls on August 21, has brought into focus the whole question of visions, apparitions and the Church’s attitude towards such private revelations, and to Marian traditions as a whole.
Knock is now numbered among the most famous visionary sites in the world, along with Lourdes and Fatima in the eyes of many. But it was not always the case. When the visions – said by the witness to be of the Virgin, St Joseph, St John the Evangelist, and of a Eucharistic lamb fronting a cross – were first reported they were greeted by both the Church authorities and by the press with doubt.
The press tends always to be sceptical about such matters, but the universal Church has to be cautious about being carried away too readily by local enthusiasms which prove false, or delusional, or even fraudulent.
An enquiry established by the Archdiocese of Tuam accepted that the 15 witnesses were indeed giving reliable accounts about what they had seen. The question really was ‘what had they seen?’ Was this truly a corporeal vision, or was it akin to an imaginative, or purely intellectual vision? –these being the categories of visions recognised by theologians.
In this instance there is no doubt that visions were seen, but when one witness approached the figures and attempted to touch them all she felt was the wall of the church. There was nothing corporeal there.
The special feature of Knock for many was the fact that there was no communication in the manner reported at Lourdes, Fatima, Rue de Bac, and many other places. But in fact it has parallels, it seems to me, with what happened at Pontmain (Mayenne) on the evening of January 17, 1871.
From an early date there was talk around Knock about the use of an early form of slide projector – what James Joyce’s father and others referred to as “the magic lantern business”. But when this was tested – it was said by some 20 different priests – the original sightings could not be replicated. (However, it might be recalled that at Ancona, Italy in June 1902 the police arrested two men responsible for an alleged Marian apparition by means of a magic lantern.)
It ought to be remembered the event of August 21 was not unique. Other apparitions were reported in the first days of January 1880; but these were in a different form to the original visions. There were reportedly further apparitions on February 10, March 25 and March 26 1880. Though some 5,000 attended on the fourth anniversary of the visions, slowly the interest in the wider world faded away.
However, the 50th anniversary which fell in 1929 saw the beginning of a new phase of the history at Knock. A further diocesan commission in 1935 reviewed the evidence favourably. It was not until that inquiry that the shrine became a place of true pilgrimage, and began to grow into one of the leading pilgrimages in Ireland. In the summer of 1939 some 120,000 pilgrims came to Knock.
By this time proper arrangements for pilgrims had been put in hand, and a medical bureau (as at Lourdes) was established to record cures.
Going there has changed the lives of many people. The building of Knock Airport – against official resistance – has changed the life of the west of Ireland. If we are to judge apparitions by their consequences then Knock has done only good.
The first publications about Knock appeared in 1880 and 1881, and since then upward of 60 books and pamphlets have appeared. Adding in books that merely make a reference to Knock and one would have a small library. It is one that continues to grow as these new titles suggest.
Long perspective
Our first book, by a well-known Marianologist, is planned to set these things into a long perspective, and will be of interest to many readers I suspect, as Fr Laurentin has taken a close interest in Marian and other apparitions of recent decades in a quite unique way. René Laurentin is a priest, theologian, historian, and journalist.
He has taught in universities in France as well as the US and Italy. A member of the Theological Pontifical University in Rome, he has dedicated the majority of his life to the study of the Virgin Mary. What he says does not always carry conviction, as in the case of Medjugorje, but he is perhaps as reliable and as well informed a writer as can be found these days.
In the new book he examines the invigorating presence of Mary in the mystery of the redemption through her presence in the course of Scripture, human and ecclesial history, the church fathers, the mystics, and others.
For a sense of what Knock means in the experience of those who live and work there, or those who travel a long way to be there, is given in Colm Kilcoyne’s Knock…And Still They Come. From his years there he brings many of the human stories and many of the great personal changes that affected those involved. This book provides an insight into the human dimension of Knock.
But there is more than that. Philip Coogan’s book is the latest personal account of a cure that was affected at Knock, another example of the most personal possible effect of the shrine.
Fr Eoin De Bhaldraithe’s little book is among the most interesting of recent publications about Knock, though it had alas to be published by his community in Kildare. His theological suggestions on the larger dimensions of the meaning of the figures seen by the first witnesses are worth pondering.
The events at Knock in 1879-1880 were transitory. They can never be experienced again. But what is truly remarkable is what Knock has become, what affect it has had on the parish, the county, the country, and indeed the world. It has become a place that shapes people lives.
In places of pilgrimage such as Knock I am always reminded of the lines from T. S. Elliot’s Little Gidding:
You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more
Than an order of words, the conscious occupation
Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.
And what the dead had no speech for, when living,
They can tell you, being dead: the communication
Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of living.
Yet we must remember that there exists in all people a latent visionary faculty. This can be cultivated through practise. At the beginning of the Spiritual Exercises St Ignatius remarks that “El primer preámbulo es composición viendo el lugar”– “seeing the place”. This is what the Jesuit tradition calls “composition of place”, imaging what the actual experience of the scripture scene you are contemplating was like.
Intellectual vision
This is, of course, a form of intellectual vision, as contrasted with the corporeal visions that are recorded at Knock, Lourdes and Fatima. But in the end, being open to all, these visions may be more effective.
The divine is found not just in special places, but everywhere. The intellectual vision enables us to “find God in all things”. This is a faculty, not so much to carry away from Knock, as to carry there in the first place. As the medieval Irish poet expresses it (in the words of translator Frank O’Connor):
To go to Rome,
Is little profit, endless pain
The Master that you seek in
Rome
You’ll find at home, or seek
in vain.