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Knock
Dec 4, 2008 16:05:58 GMT
Post by hibernicus on Dec 4, 2008 16:05:58 GMT
By the way, a social anthropologist called Eugene Hynes who comes from East Galway near Knock has just written a large book on the Apparition which is out from Cork University Press. The mindset I think is secular, but he has a lot of local detail. I haven't read it yet (browsed it in bookshops) but I mean to. One thing I noticed is that he seems to think Fr. Kavanagh's claims to sanctity are exaggerated, on what grounds I don't know. I'll post about it when I get round to reading it - if anyone else has seen it their opinion would be valued.
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Knock
Dec 6, 2008 12:46:38 GMT
Post by guillaume on Dec 6, 2008 12:46:38 GMT
I am going to Knock on monday and will stay 2 nights.
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Knock
Dec 10, 2008 20:05:52 GMT
Post by guillaume on Dec 10, 2008 20:05:52 GMT
I am back from Knock. I had been there many many times, but since i live far away, I try to go there at least once a year. There are still quite few people, even at that time. The 5pm Mass on the 8 of dec was packed. The NOM masses are full of reverence, even with different priests. Faithful have also a deep and religious attitude. Silence is well present before and after mass. Today, many of us knelt at the altar and received communion in the mouth. Sermons were Catholics, orthodox and spiritual. Confessor was well listening and spoke a long time. Such changes ! The problem with Knock, is the lack of accommodations. I used Knock House Hotel, which is good, actually and reasonably priced. I recommend it. But the choice of hotel is still very limited (Belmont, which is dear and Knock House). Nothing to compare with Lourdes... Shops are dying, little by little. Only 2 or 3 shops opened. The town seems always a bit.... calm, too calm. But it is actually not bad, at it reminds us to focus on prayers and prevent us to be tempted by shopping around, like in Lourdes. Anyway Knock is a great place : sober, religious and dedicated. Our Lady of Knock, Queen of Ireland, pray for us.
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Knock
Jan 14, 2009 15:27:55 GMT
Post by hibernicus on Jan 14, 2009 15:27:55 GMT
I've now read the Eugene Hynes book and hope to comment on it at greater length soon. Here are a few points (a) His view is that the question of whether or not a supernatural event took place lies outside the domain of scholarship; this is a convenient way of excluding the supernatural without saying you are doing so (though the point that private revelations are shaped to some extent by the attitudes, circumstances and expectations of the seer is perfectly valid). (b) He posits a gulf between how the people see it and how clerical professionals respond to it and record it, with the people in turn moulding their accounts to fit the expectations of those in authority. This is OK so far as it goes, but it is also convenient for a sceptic since it means he is trying to reconstruct something which by definition is unrecorded, adn this gives him very wide scope for speculation. A lot more of his account is sheer speculation than you would think at first glance. I might add that there are one or two canonical and iconographic issues which he gets wrong - e.g. he talks as if the image of a crowned Virgin is unprecedented because it's not at Lourdes, but the La Salette seers spoke of a crowned Virgin and there was certainly La Salette devotion in Ireland at this time; he talks as if Knock was the only place in Ireland where Marian apparitions were supposedly seen at the time (there were several, and Donnelly's article on the first decade of the Marian Shrine at Knock, which Hynes lists in his references, discusses them). (C) He has some very nice points on the Devotional Revolution thesis; he points out that many of the devotions which are associated with this in fact did maintain a continuous existence from mediaeval times, and what happens in the C19 is simply that they are taken up by the clergy after having survived among the laity - for example, he says that the Stations of the Cross (albeit in a slightly different format) can be shown to have been practised continuously in Connacht since the Reformation, and that the view that they only come in in the 1850s is demonstrably wrong. He cites one recent diocesan history which, having declared that the Stations of the Cross were not found in Kilmore diocese before the 1850s, republishes a sketch of a church from the 1820s in which the Stations are clearly indicated. Hynes suggests that the devotional revolution thesis finds favour among historians who are priests and religious because it puts religious professionals like themselves at centre stage (he argues, with a good deal of force, that what happens is not a top-down revolution but a tradeoff between what the clergy want and what the people already believe/will accept). Let me offer an alternative explanation for this phenomenon. Many of these priests/religious have reacted fairly forcefully against the Church structures and devotional practices of their youth, and have assisted in dismantling them, sometimes against considerable resistance. It is more congenial to them to believe that what they wreckovated were recent Victorian innovations than that they have discouraged or suppressed authentic immemorial practices going back centuries.
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Knock
Feb 14, 2009 2:20:59 GMT
Post by hibernicus on Feb 14, 2009 2:20:59 GMT
Another point that strikes me on re-reading the Hynes book. One of his major theses is that for much/most of the nineteenth century Irish Catholics did not define their allegiance in terms of regular Sunday Mass attendance but by a variety of devotional practices of varying degrees of orthodoxy. He makes quite a good case for this, though he tends I suspect to exaggerate the extent to which this contains non-Catholic elements (for example, some practices which he defines as "animistic" such as the use of water and clay, could equally be seen as sacramentals). What does strike me is that he downplays the extent to which the apparition clearly displays Eucharistic symbolism. He argues (and again he seems to make a good case but to exaggerate it) that the witnesses had clearly talked over their stories by the time these were formally recorded by the investigating commission, and that there is evidence that the priests on the commission were unduly credulous (i.e. they assumed the genuineness of the apparition from the start and thus tried to piece together the witnesses' testimony into a single story, rather than recording each account separately and testing them for possible discrepancies) and that they may have inadvertently shaped the witnesses' response by their questions. He notes, for example, that some of the witnesses either downplay or deny seeing the altar with the lamb and cross on top of it, and that some of them speak of the figure usually identified as St. John simply as a bishop. He notes that St. John is not usually depicted as a bishop with mitre and suggests either that the witnesses thought of the bishop as John MacHale, hence the change to St. John when it was pointed out that an apparition of a living person was unacceptable, and/or that the image derives from a picture of St. Augustine in a recently-installed window in the Augustinian Church at Ballyhaunis nearby.
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Knock
Feb 14, 2009 2:30:35 GMT
Post by hibernicus on Feb 14, 2009 2:30:35 GMT
What he does not realise is that the symbolism of the vision is straight out of the Apocalypse of St. John - the Lamb on the altar; one of the witnesses spoke of seeing many small figures like saints around the altar, which is also straight out of the Book. We tend to think of that book simply as a prophecy of the End as Evangelicals do, but in fact it is a powerful depiction of the liturgies of the Court of Heaven, the saints around the Lamb, wherein we participate at Mass. The unusual depiction of St. John as a bishop rather than the young man of conventional Passion iconography reflects the traditional view that he wrote the Apocalypse in his old age. Hynes seems to be someone who was brought up in an atmosphere of unquestioning belief and lapsed at university, so he doesn't pick up on this symbolism. I must say there is something so unusual about the imagery I am inclined to think the apparition was genuine - it doesn't strike me as the sort of thing a faker would invent.
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Knock
Feb 26, 2009 10:10:49 GMT
Post by Hemingway on Feb 26, 2009 10:10:49 GMT
Hi Hibericus. I recently read Fr. Tom Lanes book regarding Knock. Its quite an interesting read.
However, being who I am, I have to conclude that Fr. Lane didn’t really out anything new on the table for me. Its a topic worthy of discussion but I have to say the "evidence" all seems to boil down to the testimony of people from the village and their interpretation of what the say they saw.
When you consider the background these people came from, it can go some way to explain their intrerpretations. If in the same situation, a sheep herder from India could have quite possibly have seen a vision of Vishnu or an acient Greek a vision of Zeus.
What ever happened during that time, the brain of the Visionaries interpreted the information as best as it could and called on its database of knowledge to try and explain what it was they were seeing.
As they were Roman Catholic in 19th Century Ireland its hardly suprising the saw John, Our Lady et al........
One either accepts their testimony or one doesn’t. Personally testimony alone isn’t usually enough for me (in any field). Testimony as I see it must be able to be backed up by demonstrable evidence. With the supernatural we very rarely, if ever, get that.
They may very well have seen what they say they saw, its just there isnt and never can be any way of proving it.
Its an interesting book though if anyone is interested in reading it.
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Post by hibernicus on Feb 26, 2009 11:37:16 GMT
I haven't read Fr. Lane's book but I will keep an eye out for it. Is it new? Hynes' position is pretty similar to yours - he takes the view that the "reality" of the apparition can only be interpreted in terms of what it means to the visionaries and to those who hear about it, and that it is impossible to gain access to what "really" happened. This is I think a Kantian position, and it also has a great deal of similarity with the way modernist Scripture scholars approach the New Testament. Part of the problem I would argue is that different concepts of "proof" apply in the sciences and humanities. Sciences deal with something that can be repeated at will and tested; history deals with unrepeatable events which can only be decided on the balance of probabilities (even though that balance may be overwhelming). For example, I believe that Margaret Cusack (alias the Nun of Kenmare) died a Methodist because at the time a Methodist minister who was actually present at her deathbed publicly stated under his real name that she had done so. Eighty years after her death a member of the Poor Clare community in Kenmare stated that forty years earlier a priest had told the community that an elderly priest (who died before he could be contacted for further information) had told him that he reconciled the Nun of Kenmare to Catholicism. Obviously the Methodist statement (made at the time in public by a named witness, and according with her last publicly-expressed sentiments) is much stronger evidence, and the Catholic statement is much weaker and so less likely to be true; but although I believe the Methodist version is the correct one it is not impossible that the Catholic version might be the true one, and I couldn't convince someone who was determined to believe it. (I had some exchanges on this board recently with a holocaust denier called Sceilg who came out of the woodwork to support Bishop Williamson. He raises the same question, of how do you prove the truth of a historical statement, in a much more extreme form, and in his case with strong overtones of bad faith.)
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Knock
Feb 26, 2009 16:54:18 GMT
Post by Hemingway on Feb 26, 2009 16:54:18 GMT
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Knock
Feb 26, 2009 17:17:22 GMT
Post by hibernicus on Feb 26, 2009 17:17:22 GMT
Thanks, Hemingway
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Post by hibernicus on Mar 24, 2011 17:50:19 GMT
One point which struck me when I was having a conversation with a Knock devotee recently is that the significance of the Famine for the Knock apparition can be overlooked? Why did Fr Kavanagh have a particular devotion to the Holy Souls? Why was he celebrating a series of Masses for the Holy Souls in general (i.e without reference to named individuals, and hence without the usual stipend - bear in mind that priests would rely on Mass stipends for a significant proportion of their income and could say only a limited number of Masses, to to say 100 Masses without payment invlolved some financial sacrifice)? He was ordained in 1847 and his first parish was Westport, which saw major Famine mortality. He was subsequently involved in working for famine orphans. The implication thus, I think, is that his particular devotion for the Holy Souls reflected concern for the Famine dead - for those who died alone or anonymously, often without the Sacraments, and were buried like dead animals. Such scenes are and must be a terrible trial to faith. Fr Cavanagh's Masses, then, were an attempt to reincorporate these nameless and forgotten dead in the sacramental economy, and one possible interpretation for the vision would be as a sign that the sacrifice were accepted and the suffering was not meaningless or in vain - much as the late Pope John Paul promoted the Divine Mercy devotion as a conscious answer to the horrors and crimes of the twentieth century. This is only a thought, and of course does not exhaust the significance of the apparition.
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Knock
May 3, 2011 7:16:35 GMT
Post by flynncreek on May 3, 2011 7:16:35 GMT
Hmm, it just surprises me that some people who believe in the Bible don't believe that apparitions can take place outside of biblical times...
God didn't intend for miracles to happen only in the Bible. We really could add scriptures to the bible, couldn't we? God is still doing things today as he did in both the new and old testament.
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Knock
Aug 27, 2016 20:18:55 GMT
Post by hibernicus on Aug 27, 2016 20:18:55 GMT
There is a new documentary on Knock, called STRANGE OCCURRENCES IN AN IRISH VILLAGE. It was released to selected cinemas, including the IFI and Lighthouse in Dublin, yesterday. I suspect it will probably be shown on RTE and released on DVD in the near future. The makers are the same team who did the recent documentary on Glasnevin Cemetery, ONE MILLION DUBLINERS. I attended the premiere, which was followed by a Q&A with the director and two people who appeared in the film (a shrine handmaid who gave some very firm expressions of old-time religion on screen and said she stood over every word of them, and a woman - very impressive personally - who was apparently cured of multiple sclerosis at the shrine some 25 years ago). The film and the Q&A were surprisingly respectful and I would certainly recommend seeing it, but one thing that struck me was that the chair and to some extent the film could be solicitous towards their subject because the implied Dublin audience were assumed to be so distant from them - at one point the chair asked how many of the audience had been to Knock and was surprised by the number of hands that went up. May put up some more thoughts on the film later.
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Knock
Oct 17, 2016 20:36:54 GMT
Post by hibernicus on Oct 17, 2016 20:36:54 GMT
www.stramentarius.com/october-14th-2016/Stramentarius reports from the recent LMSI pilgrimage to Knock, which I hear was quite successful: 120-150 participants, including a FSSP priest and an ICKSP priest - and sadly notes the paucity of young Irish pilgrims, while numerous Africans and Indians show commendable fervour. The heirs of the martyrs have forgotten their heritage, and the gentiles rightly inherit the kingdom.
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Knock
Nov 4, 2016 13:17:25 GMT
Post by prayerful on Nov 4, 2016 13:17:25 GMT
www.stramentarius.com/october-14th-2016/Stramentarius reports from the recent LMSI pilgrimage to Knock, which I hear was quite successful: 120-150 participants, including a FSSP priest and an ICKSP priest - and sadly notes the paucity of young Irish pilgrims, while numerous Africans and Indians show commendable fervour. The heirs of the martyrs have forgotten their heritage, and the gentiles rightly inherit the kingdom. Sad I couldn't make that, but the pilgrimage involved people getting their own transport. Driving to Mayo can be draining. And it appears I don't make the second Sunday evening (Tridentine) Mass in the parish church. I've found the demographic profile when I'm in Knock to be alright. Academic books cost a bomb, part a factor of small production runs, and price gouging academic publishers. I will try have a look myself. First post: I don't see an intro thread, living in Dublin, hear Mass (High on Sunday/Obligation days, Low in the morning) in St Kevin's church, and once or twice St Johns' in Dun Laoghaire (was I gonna hire a chopper to pass the Marathon 'ring of steel?'), so here I am.
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