A Pilgrims Progress

Sorry that I haven't blogged for months, I was depressed due to a variety of reasons but am feeling much better now because I have moved! I've moved in with a friend of mine and share a one bedroom apartment with her and I love it. Also, I've jut baked some brownies (always helps!).

Anyway, last weekend I went on a trip with my Material Catholicism class (I love that class so much!) to Our Lady of the Rocks, a pilgrimage that take place on the 13th of every month and draws hundreds of pilgrims from all over California. The visionary goes on a 20 minute walk accompanied by some attends and statue of Jesus and Mary and somewhere along the walk she sees Mary who tells her what to preach on (usually the wrongness of abortions), whilst she is having a chat to Our Lady the pilgrims drop to their knees and pray and/or take photos of the sun (it is supposed to be a gateway to heaven where the faithful can catch glimpses of Jesus, Mary, etc). I had to write a report on it for the class and here it is. Enjoy and if you want to feel free to leave me a grade in the comments (I may well come to regret suggesting that):

Our Lady of the Rocks was originally located in Lopez Canyon, Pacoima, California, but it quickly became far too popular and the owners complained. It’s easy to see why, there were hundreds of pilgrims and the facilities at the new Mojave location could barely cope with them all. So Mary told the seer of the visions, Maria Acuna, to move it to the Mojave desert in the middle of no where so they cannot disturb anyone.
Well they certainly found a location in the middle of nowhere, we arrived the night before in the dark and it was very difficult to find. There were probably only 10 other people when we arrived, but everyone was very welcoming and they invited us to come and it by shrine with them and do rosaries. Initially one woman, Irma, led the Rosaries in the dark around a single shrine with a candle on it. Knowing relatively little about Catholicism I was ignorant as to how long it would take and was amazed at how long these people at around quietly praying. Halfway through a few car loads of families turned up and children descended disrupting, but not ending the rosary session. We left to have dinner soon afterwards but returned a few hours later when there were four people saying the rosary, this time with their focus on a candle on the floor, it seemed much more spiritual a time with one woman openly weeping and people clearly in pain praying away, these people had a purpose to their pilgrimage. During the whole pilgrimage I was amazed at how much people would endure on this pilgrimage, people in obvious pain, pregnant, and with small children. They really had faith.
Faith was something I lacked and Irma was quick to pick up on this and tell myself and my companions that it was vital; we would see nothing with curiosity. The trouble with faith is that something has to inspire it in the first place, but I saw nothing to negate my scepticism. I heard many tales of people seeing (and even touching) the Virgin and Jesus, either directly or through photographs of the sun, I was even shown photos that people claimed showed the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Holy Ghost, but in my mind they were easy to explain by camera faults. The one testimony I heard that really held true was by the son-in-law of Mary Acuna, who himself did not believe in the apparitions but had seen someone be healed and actually remove their neck brace, the doctor of the person healed was so amazed that he called Acuna to find out what she had done. Faith is very important, but curiosity can uncover some proof, unfortunately faith is required for belief, and so I go on as an unbeliever.
Throughout the night people arrived, with a big coach load of pilgrims from Oakland arriving just before dawn. The first thing the pilgrims who arrived a few hours prior to the main event did was set up the folding chairs they had brought, reserving themselves a good view, some even brought gazebos (a few of which were actually roped off) and reserved their entire family a big spot. However later on when the service began the chairs and gazebos seemed to be irrelevant, people mostly stood up and pushed forward for a view, but that was hard to come by with countless numbers of umbrellas up not even the tall were guaranteed a view.
Whilst the service was conducted entirely in Spanish there were a fair few white non-Spanish speakers, but they tended to arrive a lot later than the Hispanics, and came in smaller groups. Despite turning up later than everyone else they were quite pushy and would happily push others out of the way in order to get a good view. However, I found that a lot of the pilgrims were quite selfish, they were there for their own reasons and didn’t want anything to get in the way of that, so they would push or not help when they easily could. For example when I was in a long queue for the one toilet and an elderly lady with a zimmer frame and a carer, who was clearly in pain, was making her slow way to the end of the queue, but no one stepped forward and allowed her to push in. I was fairly near the back and told her she could take my place but should try to push in at the front, she followed my advice, but the people at the front would not let her in and so she still had to wait five minutes. It might not sound like much, but it showed how selfish a lot of the pilgrims could be, and how unchristian they were, or perhaps they just really needed the toilet.
The more people arrived the worse the toilet queue became, and I quickly discovered that it is a great way of hearing people’ testimony, standing around for upwards of half-an-hour is enough to make anyone talk! I got chatting to Maria, a middle aged Catholic woman on her second pilgrimage to Our Lady of the Rocks. The first time she came her whole family group as well as herself saw Jesus’ face whilst on their way home. She was hopeful of another sighting that day, but I was unable to find her later and discover whether she had or not. I also met someone who had been coming for well over ten year but had never seen anything, yet still had faith.
I was impressed by the sheer faith of the pilgrims, some of whom come month after month, to travel long distances to a pilgrimage that is not approved by the Church. They have probably never met Acuna, yet they still believe her claims to having visions of the Virgin. It is impossible for a non-believer, such as myself, to give a true account of the event, I could only ever be a bystander. But I enjoyed it nonetheless. In the early stages there was a great sense of community and true spirituality about the place, and I suppose that when the pilgrimage happens on a weekday it is likely to be what I experienced the night before, it will draw only the truly dedicated and be a more intimate experience. Despite the lack of intimacy or community during the actual pilgrimage the pilgrims took away a lot with them, even if it was just hope or reinforced faith.