How Mary Found Me
1.
In the fall of 2001, I was pregnant with Áine. We had just moved from Colorado to northern Illinois. Rich and I had attended Unitarian churches for a few years starting when Deirdre was born, but we were soul-searching for answers and decided to explore several Christian denominations in our new hometown. Rich’s family was Baptist (his grandfather was a Southern Baptist preacher) and my family was Methodist (my mom was just completing her seminary work to become a Methodist minister). We wanted to visit several other denominations in our search for a church home. There was a lovely old United Church of Christ nearby. We visited a Presbyterian church and a Lutheran church, but the church that captivated us was the local Episcopal church. It helped that Áine was about 3 weeks old when we first visited, and the sermon and music was all focused on a human mother bringing a miraculous child into the world.
The angels hover’d round, and sang this song:
Venite, adoremus Dominum
(The Hymnal 1982 #110)
Once in royal David’s city,
Stood a lowly cattle shed,
Where a mother laid her baby
In a manger for his bed:
Mary was that mother mild,
Jesus Christ her little Child.
(The Hymnal 1982 #101)
It was not just my newborn baby though. My 6-year-old was ever curious, my 4-year-old was busy. In some other churches, I felt like our pew was not still enough and that we were distracting. In this Episcopal church; however, we stood, we sat, we kneeled. We had an Order of Service, the “blue hymnal,” the Lift Every Voice and Sing (LEVAS) hymnal, and a Book of Common Prayer. Keeping up with what we were doing helped keep my mind focused. It also meant that the people around me were changing books and moving around. The liturgy felt very fluid and comforting.
We visited again and started to relax. This parish had an enclosed chapel to one side of the sanctuary. When I felt overwhelmed, I envisioned myself visiting outside of Sunday services and sitting alone there. The sanctuary had stained glass windows, tall ceilings, an Advent wreath near the altar and greenery around the church. To the left of the altar there was a wooden carved statue. I asked the Priest and learned that it was a statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe. I had never heard of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The statue was rustic, with visible carving marks on Mary’s face and gown, and there were stark points sticking out of the statue. I was a mom with three children and did not initially have the time or inclination to research the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Sunday after Sunday; however, I would arrive at the church and gaze at this statue. One day it occurred to me that one side seemed to have more points than the other. I wondered if it was because one side had narrower points or if one was missing. During the sermon (because that was the only time that I was not standing and kneeling), I would try to count how many points were on each side of the statue. Inevitably, before I could finish counting one of the girls would ask me a question or drop something on the floor.
Mary captivated me.
Later I read about Juan Diego at Tepeyac and his visions of Our Lady of Guadalupe. I learned that the points were rays of sunlight, that there was an angel at her feet, and that other symbols like the crescent moon under her feet and the stars on her mantel were Aztec symbols that the people of Tepeyac would see and recognize. From this vision in the 1500s over 9 million Aztecs converted to Christianity.
Before we moved, our Priest donated the statue to a local Spanish-speaking parish. It happened before I was able to calm my mind about how many points there were. I found out the name of the parish that received the statue, called and made an appointment to visit the statue. I stood in front of the statue and counted the rays once and for all. Were they the same? I don’t remember! I do remember the gratitude I felt for this icon that compelled me to be still, to sit in wonder, to ponder the holiness of Mary – just a girl—who boldly accepted her unknown future when God sent an angel to her, and to think of the ways that God comes to us where we are.
Source, https://www.cambridge2000.com/gallery2/html/2011/P72052279e.html
2.
The Annunciation of our Lady Episcopal church is where all three girls were baptized and where Rich and I had our civil wedding vows blessed (married in 1991, vows blessed in 2003). We left it when the Army issued Rich orders to California. We moved to the Monterey Bay.
Until this move, neither Rich nor I had spent time west of Colorado, nor had we experienced much of the south west of the Arkansas. We took both of our vehicles; Rich transported our cat with him, I drove the car with all three girls. We contemplated changing drivers or moving car seats around. Once we started, it was just easier to leave things in place. We drove from Gurnee, Illinois to Crossett, Arkansas to see Rich’s parents. We continued driving south to Lafayette, Louisiana to see friends. From there, we went west for 1,700 miles (25 hours) – nearly all of those miles were on I-10. We spent the 4th of July on the border at Fort Bliss (El Paso, Texas). We left Arizona via Yuma, where we saw the sandy desert where Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi was filmed.
Along our route, we kept seeing Our Lady of Guadalupe. There were cement Our Lady of Guadalupe statutes at a shop along the Interstate. We found Our Lady of Guadalupe jewelry in rest stop gas station stores. We drove with the Guadalupe Mountains National Park in the distance on the right side of our vehicles for quite a while. I realized, Mary is everywhere, but you may not notice her unless you are looking.
Over the years, I have mentioned to friends that Mary chose me, particularly in her manifestation as Our Lady of Guadalupe. I have lamented that I would have liked to have been chosen by Our Lady of Lourdes or any of the blue porcelain Madonnas. But while I wish I were that kind of girl; Our Lady of Guadalupe fits me better. In turn, dozens of friends have given me Our Lady of Guadalupe gifts: earrings, t-shirts, a giant fuzzy blanket, bottle openers, Christmas tree ornaments, papel picado, cards, and more. Friends have mailed things from their trips to Honduras and elsewhere, and the girls have made me handmade Marian art.
Kingsville, Texas
Years later (2013), the girls and I had the opportunity join a community art project
hosted by an art teacher at Texas A&M University-Kingsville. We, along with
university students and other community volunteers, painted an Our Lady of
Guadalupe that covered a cement slab that spanned a city block.
Guadalupe River, Central Texas
Today, one of Áine and my favorite places is along
the banks for the Guadalupe
River in Central Texas.
Our family arrived in the Monterey Bay area in July 2004. After visiting several Episcopal churches, we quickly felt called to St. Mary’s by-the-Sea, in Pacific Grove. I was charmed by this historic church and loved moving from The Annunciation of Our Lady Episcopal Church in Gurnee, Illinois to St. Mary’s by-the-Sea, which was founded by Episcopal women on Annunciation Day in 1886.
Local lore suggests that one of their stained-glass panels, created by Elwood Potts and dedicated in memory of Agatha Few, shows the visit of the three wise people as one of the magi looks quite like a woman.
St Mary’s has a stained-glass window above the altar that reproduces the conversation between the Angel Gabriel and Mary. The depiction takes place in front of what appears to the Monterey Bay, with a bay view and plants local to the area.
Mary found me again.
In our first year at St. Mary’s, I had an unanticipated surgery, we moved into our Army quarters, moved to a different set of quarters as ours were on the list of quarters slated to be demolished, and Rich deployed to Iraq on a year tour. I had three young children (3, 8, and 9 years old).
The parish stepped up and matched our needs with support and prayers. The Altar Guild invited me to serve. When I said that I couldn’t possibly join them because I was single parenting 3 girls, my future team members stepped up. Jan Parks said that the girls were always welcome to join me. I decided to try. My youngest, Áine, was quite shy at the time. I will always remember my Altar Guild team member John Hedgcock sizing her up. Instead of greeting her and trying to make friends, John ignored her initially. Then, he turned and asked her if she could hand him a flower from the table that was waiting to go into his altar arrangement. Again and again, he needed her help, until they had become special friends.
I can’t list all the parish members who cared for us during that time. We were well-fed and well cared for. Father Richard Leslie and Reverend Marcia Lockwood invited us to put our military service star in the kitchen window at St. Mary’s, so that everyone who passed the church could include Rich in their prayers. I was buoyed up by the love and support of my friends at St. Mary’s.
One day while I was at St. Mary’s alone polishing brass, I noticed that there was an aumbry built into the wall on the left side of the altar as you face the Annunciation stained glass window. I knew that the reserved sacrament was kept elsewhere. I was curious about what was inside this door. When I tried to open it, the door was stuck. Eventually, I coaxed the door open and found an empty space. I asked my altar guild friends and learned that the reserved sacrament had been there previously but was moved to its current location. I was charmed by this empty space, and, like Mary, I pondered it in my heart for some time.
It was coming up to the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and I thought it would be fun to fill this niche with something to remember the day (December 12). My treasured friend and fellow parishioner, Brita, celebrated her birthday that same week. I pondered what I could put into the aumbry to commemorate the feast day. While my girls were all in a homeschool choir rehearsal in Carmel-by-the-Sea, I decided to wander through a local thrift store. What did I find but the most fantastic Our Lady of Guadalupe in what appeared to be a sealed liquor bottle! I nearly fell over.
Over the next week, the girls and I found some very shiny gold paper, several red and green battery powdered candles, battery powered Christmas lights, and silk red roses. I added two Our Lady of Guadalupe pins that had bright flashing lights. We went back to the church and installed the arrangement. We did not tell anyone.
That Sunday, I arrived before the second service, cracked the door open and turned on all the lights. No one could see the display or even the lights from the pews.
Father Richard was presiding that Sunday. I could see clearly the moment when the flashing lights caught his attention. I don’t think anyone else noticed, but I saw him walk to the aumbry, open the door slightly, smile slightly, then return to the altar.
After that Sunday, I would return to open the aumbry and turn on the various lights on holy days. I gave several parishioners tours of the shrine. When it was time for us to move, I contemplated removing the niche, but friends encouraged me to let it stay. For years following our move (we moved in 2008), I would hear from friends who visited the niche or saw the lights during a service.
I dedicated my secret project to Brita whose birthday is this week and with whom I share a Marian kinship.
And I shared this prayer that I wrote on the blog that I maintained during Rich’s deployment and for several years after.
We thank you, God, for the ways you inspire us and how to come to teach us, age to age, generation to generation in ways that speak to who we are right now.
We thank you for the saints you have sent before us who lived in ways that direct us and who teach us that we are each called to live purely even in risky times.
We are grateful for Mary. We are thankful for the lessons she offers us: lessons in grace, faithfulness, honesty and strength
