Wednesday, July 15, 2020

The Spiritual Mysteries Beneath Our Feet

The grotto mentioned in the article was not far from my home and a very special place for me. From Lit Hub:

A campanile marked the grotto’s entrance. From time to time bells rang out, bouncing off cliff rock before settling into pastureland below. The site was built to simulate Lourdes, a cave in Southern France where, in 1858, the same year Millet was hard at work on L’Angélus, a young miller’s daughter named Bernadette perceived apparitions of the Virgin Mary. At the Maryland shrine, a statue commemorates these visits, Mary’s eyes gazing skyward from a half-shell curve cut into the stone. On a knoll opposite, plaster Bernadette kneels in awe.

By the 1980s, the time of our Sunday visits, a long gravel path led the way. A few yards in stood a round pond, maybe 20 feet across, rimmed with black iron fencing. Thick vertical spears topped by arrowheads gestured upward. In the center of the pond, another statue of Mary stared, upward. Old trees above soughed and swayed in a loose leafy knit, drawing the eyes upward. But at the bottom of the shallow pond, greening yet intact, a newspaper lay. With each visit, I expected its disappearance, but impossibly, it was always there. (Read more.)
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