Eliade and the Second Viewpoint

Religious scholar Mircea Eliade also argued for this broader definition of religion. The Marian apparitions, which he would have called hierophanies[1], have contributed a great amount of feeling to the practice of Roman Catholicism, whether the church approves or not. He would call these sightings and objects of worship religious, as long as people feel a sense of holiness when interacting with them. A hierophany is a “breakthrough of the sacred into the World.”[2] The Virgin Mary is a sacred person, and her appearance is certainly a “breakthrough” into our mundane world. We can safely say, then, that the Apparitions are all hierophanies in and of themselves. So are hierophanies a vital part of religion? Eliade says that not only are they vital, but they are what shape a religion, and give it body. He would say that the Marian Apparitions have more weight in Catholicism than many more common rituals that are not necessarily hierophanic in nature.

How have the Marian Apparitions led to a greater sense of Catholicism? The answer is in the legions of followers who visit the sacred sites of the Apparitions, both approved and unapproved, and those who purchase things like burnt toast in the form of the Virgin. They gravitate toward these because in the original moment of apparition, they were hierophanies. They were Holy moments that lend a feeling of sacredness to an everyday moment. Catholicism in its traditional sense becomes almost superfluous in this sense, as hierophanies are the formation of a greater religious experience.

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[1] See footnote 5.

[2] Mircea Eliade “Myth and Reality”

Orsi and the First Viewpoint

Orsi said that religion “comes into being in an ongoing, dynamic relationship with the realities of everyday life.”[1] The pilgrims who travel to touch and pray by statues of Our Lady of Lourdes[2] feel a closeness with religion that can’t be replicated outside of the site. Their voyage to the sanctuary, marked by the purchases of plane tickets, bus fares, and other such very physical and everyday actions, becomes sacred despite the fact that they have been through a whole loop of mundane things before arriving. This is the “dynamic relationship with everyday life” in which Orsi believes. Even in the hustle and bustle of the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, hundreds of people each day feel a union with Mary and with Catholicism which they paid and travelled a great deal to experience.

If this apparition, which brings so much joy to Catholics, has been approved by the Church, it’s easy to argue for its place in religion. However, we are met with a new challenge when talking about unapproved Marian apparitions. I consider there to be two fairly well-defined classes of unapproved Apparitions. In the first class are those which have been visited by the Pope, are followed by large numbers of worshippers, and are considered by most Catholics to be genuine. In the second class I would place those objects such as toast burnt in Mary’s resemblance, or stains on walls which take her shape. As one can imagine, it grows more difficult to defend apparitions as religious as one progresses from approved, to first class, and to second. However, Orsi would defend all of these, as they all involve a personal relationship with the religion, even if only by a few. Even if the majority of Catholics would not regard the burnt toast as Holy, some Ebay purchaser paid $71 for it. Like pouring holy water into radiators[3], those who worship the approved and unapproved Marian apparitions feel spiritually fulfilled by their relationship with these objects of worship.

In order to support the relationship between Orsi’s worship-centric theory of religion and the worship of the Marian apparitions, I propose to travel to the site of various approved and first and second class unapproved Marian apparitions. Interviews with worshippers would determine how far pilgrims travel to see these apparitions, and how they feel that their worship has a place in their personal experience of Catholicism. It would be important to ask whether they consider themselves strictly Catholic, especially those at the unapproved sites. If it were revealed that people do indeed consider these apparitions as vital to their experience of religion, and that they will travel far to visit them, I would consider the apparitions to fall into Orsi’s category of the “ongoing, dynamic relationship” with religion which he considers to be as important as any tradition approved by the Church.

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[1] See footnote 4.

[2] A Church-approved Marian apparition in France

[3] See footnote 4.

Beginning of the Finale

The Virgin Mary is one of the most iconic religious personages of our time. She is pictured holding the baby Jesus, rising to Heaven, and simply praying in any number of mediums. Her face is in paintings, stained glass windows, statues, and in every manner of mirrors, pill boxes, rosaries, and other trinkets. She is even said to have appeared many times in everyday circumstances, dating back to 1531 in Mexico[1]. These appearances, or apparitions, are at the center of a great deal of folk lore, worship, and occasionally approval by the Catholic Church.

Although only thirteen of these apparitions have been deemed to be true by the Church[2], hundreds of other seeming appearances have found their way to the public and to the internet. A Google search for “Mary apparitions” contains pictures of burnt toast, the windows of a high rise, a bowl of soup, and even the wall in a subway station which bear resemblances to Mary. Some of these are sold on eBay; many are simply worshipped with small shrines, but the reverence for these objects, almost completely apart from Catholicism, creates an interesting division between the Catholic Church and popular culture. This division seems to be completely disregarded by many followers, who consider these unapproved apparitions to be just as wholly worship-able as the approved ones[3].

These cleavages between popular ideas and the Church’s approved doctrine are not new. They are not fought over, although many unofficial apparitions and their supporters wait and lobby for centuries in order to obtain approval. They are simply examples of faith beyond religion, as is Robert Orsi’s depiction of the shrine in the North Bronx[4].

Orsi said that religion “comes into being in an ongoing, dynamic relationship with the realities of everyday life.”[5] He would argue, then, for these apparitions to be called religious, as it is one of the small, everyday parts of worship that defines an individual’s religious experience.

Religious scholar Mircea Eliade also argued for this broader description of religion. The Marian apparitions, which he would have called hierophanies[6], have contributed a great amount of feeling to the practice of Roman Catholicism, whether the church approves or not. He would call these sightings and objects of worship religious, as long as people feel a sense of holiness when interacting with them.

Thomas A. Tweed argued that sacred places and items created something of a separate reality[7], and would have considered the apparitions to be indicative of the unity of the worshipper with the religion itself and with its origins. A Catholic in Chicago can light a candle at the shrine in the Chicago subway[8] and feel himself transported to the realm of the holy, even despite the racket of the subway and the bustling crowds around him. This indicates the religious nature of the apparitions, as they exist in two almost distinct realities.

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[1] Mary was said to have appeared to a man in Mexico at this time, asking that a temple be built for her. When no one believes the man’s tale, a portrait of Mary appeared on his cloak. This image came to be called the Virgin of Guadalupe.

[2] http://www.catholicdoors.com/isit/approved.htm has a clear list of approved apparitions.

[3] Such as the author of marypages.com, who gives a list of the more serious apparitions, excluding toast and windows but still including many not officially approved by the Church.

[4] Robert Orsi, "Everyday Miracles: The Study of Lived Religion"

[5] See footnote 4.

[6] Mircea Eliade, “The Sacred and the Profane”

[7] Thomas A. Tweed, “Our Lady of the Exile”

[8] An unapproved apparition of Mary is the result of water damage in a Chicago subway.