and yet....

View looking down from midway up Apparition Hill

As you may be able to tell I came into Medugorje a non-believer, expecting good material for a laugh. I love going to big tourist attractions for the kitsch and silliness of humans. I am intrigued that some places call to people.

Like my long-neglected urge to see Mount Rushmore.

When Drew suggested we’d seen enough and there might be actual sun on the coast so we should go, I was inclined to agree. But Tracy, a converted Catholic, objected that she could not tell church friends she went to the city but didn’t actually go on the pilgrimage, so we set off for Apparition Hill.

This is no small incline or easy walk. We are talking about a kilometer up a steep, exceedingly rocky trail dotted with thorn trees and the Stations of the Cross carved in stone. It is crowded and pilgrims are, for the most part, not the backpack- toting, buff teen-agers you encounter on the hiking trails. There are very old people here, infirm people. I saw at least one blind man.
Along with Marys and rosaries a big seller in the shops of town are wooden walking sticks – canes with medals of Mary embedded in the handles.

Survival gear as religious relic. Clever.

I am in clogs, which make climbing harder, but not as hard as the pilgrims walking up in barefeet. Guidebooks say some people go up on their knees, which I did not see. But I saw people holding up their loved ones and moving slowly, painfully, upward.

Drew wondered if someone in the parish office was assigned to go out periodically and sharpen the stones to increase the pilgrim atmosphere.

As for me, I kept slipping and muttering, “Jesus!” then realizing how highly inappropriate that was. Or maybe not, Mary certainly was getting me to think more about her son.

At one point, a woman we didn’t know trying to make her way up clutched at Tracy’s arm and leaned on her for a distance in lieu of a walking stick embedded with a medal of Mary.

I took off my jacket, stuck the scarf I’d been carrying because of the rain in a pocket. I was sweating. Tracy and Drew were far ahead of me. As I climbed up I turned and looked down.

There is a stunning view from the Hill of Apparitions of farms and treelots. It was beautiful and,
well, peaceful.

People don’t talk as they climb, but they chant and pray. Hundreds of Hail Marys murmured in a handful of languages make a lovely music. It seemed that at the Stations the prayer leaders were all women, except for a group led by a black man speaking melodic French.

It was very nice, I admitted to myself.

And then came the summit. Atop one last bulldozer load of sharp rocks, surrounded by bouquets and flowers sits a white bland statue of Mary, veiled, expressionless, one hand held out palm up. It’s not the art that impressed me.

But the people. All those poor souls looking for love. And hope. Paying all that money, coming all that way in a belief someone powerful and beautiful cares about them. The rocks this high up are littered with paper. Pilgrims leave notes seeking divine help. “For peace in the family,” read one in English that I investigated. Tracy photographed a woman crying as she wrote out her plea.

A man led an Italian group in prayer and repeated shouts of GRAZIE MAMA sounded even louder in the silence.

I don’t know. I can’t explain it. I thought about my own mother, to whom I owe many grazie’s. I thought about my sons, not so close as Jesus was to his mom, but, I hope, enjoying life more.

And I said a prayer.

Ok, I don’t really get prayer. I sort of handled it the way I would flipping a penny into a wishing well or blowing out the candles on a birthday cake. But I was moved to it.

“I don’t know if Mary really appeared here 25 years ago,” Tracy commented on the way back down, “but it doesn’t matter because she’s here now.”