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Visions of Mary

There was a report on the news about a girl in Chicago who saw the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe on the wall of an underpass while walking to school. She told a few friends, and they told a few friends, and within days hundreds of people were making a pilgrimage to the underpass. The highway department issued a statement saying that the image was created by salt and water erosion, but it didn’t slow the crowds.

If I was in Chicago rather than California, I’d have headed for the underpass too. Lately I’ve had a strong yearning for the presence of Mary, in spite of being Jewish and semi-Buddhist. When I am in Her presence, I feel a pleasant movement in my heart’s center, as if renovation and restoration is going on in there. Pictures of Mary are scattered throughout my home: An ethereal Mary by the door, an Immaculate Heart on the bookshelf, and a Guadalupe magnet on the fridge. A statue of Kwan Yin, the Buddhist Goddess of Compassion, sits in the middle of the living room; in my mind she is Mary, too—the female embodiment of the divine, the Mother.

The morning after the news report, I decided to go on a pilgrimage of my own to the Mission San Antonio. I’d never been there, but the mission churches almost always have pictures of or altars to Mary, so I was sure that I would encounter her.

Getting there involved a two-hour drive through the Salinas Valley, John Steinbeck territory, and then another half hour through fledgling vineyards on a road lined with moss-covered trees. Eventually, I pulled up to a military barricade. It turned out that he mission was on the grounds of a training camp. If I had known it I doubt I would have come.

A soldier asked for my driver’s license and proof of insurance, then told me to pull over and wait. I was nervous. What if the soldier typed my name in a computer and a flag came up: Registered Democrat, called the President “deplorable” in a letter to the editor, long-time contributor to a raging left-wing blog? No one knew I was there, and they could have held me for weeks before anyone would have noticed that I was missing. I was glad my Saturn was sporting the bumper sticker that said “Peace on Earth” instead of the one I’d been tempted to get: “Impeach Bush.”

Finally, he handed me a pass and I could continue to the mission. Inside the gate, a troop of soldiers in helmets and green fatigues rode in the back of a truck through a pasture and a convoy of jeeps snaked down the two-lane road. It was surreal to be in the midst of the military while on a pilgrimage, and the lush backdrop of pine-covered hills and wildflower-filled meadows made it even more dreamlike.

Outside the mission, quail ran about, magpies flitted through the trees, and a wild turkey marched along a dirt path. The exterior of the mission was standard issue: White adobe walls, red tile roof, and bells in the tower. Inside, a statue of an archangel hovered over the main altar, and a six-foot painting of the Guadalupe hung on a wall. The sun streamed in a small window above the painting, making it difficult to see anything except the familiar outline of Our Lady’s golden halo. I closed my eyes and attempted to meditate, but a line from my Women’s Yoga Chants CD played repeatedly in my head: Sadashiva Ranjari Jai Janani. Later I discovered that the words mean “rejoicing in the ever-blissful Self, let me sing praises to Janani, the Great Mother.”

Two white-haired men with thick Irish accents walked down the aisle, their voices booming in the empty church. They knelt simultaneously when they reached the main altar. I wanted to kneel too, but I was leery. The first time I knelt was at the funeral of a Catholic schoolmate when I was sixteen. When I dropped to my knees like everyone else, my mother pulled me up by the forearm. “Jewish people don’t kneel,” she hissed. It was twenty years before I did it again. But when the men left, I went to the front and cautiously knelt. I was tempted to stand up again before anyone saw me, but I told myself I was grown up and could kneel if I wanted. It felt good to be on the cold brick floor.

When I rose, it seemed to me that Our Lady was no longer confined to the painting. She was in the shadow of the archangel, in the smattering of white stars painted on the ceiling, and in the sunlight streaming in the window. Surely she was outside in the bell tower too, in the quail, and in the soldiers.

I thought, the Chicago highway department can say what it wants about salt and water erosion. The pilgrims found their own truth.

Stacy Clamage is a freelance writer who lives in Northern California. She is currently at work on a collection of essays set in the California Missions.

Photo of the Virgin of Guadalupe courtesy of Fernando Cardenas.

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