Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Catholic
They Had Heard No Thunder

They Had Heard No Thunder

Last updated on: January 14, 2019 at 3:46 pm by Mary Pezzulo

They Had Heard No Thunder 2019-01-14T15:46:31-04:00 Mary Pezzulo

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Some were inside of churches; some were at conveniently-located retreat centers with suspiciously well-stocked gift shops. We packed into those places with hundreds of Apparition-chases, praying the Rosary. I would panic and cry, embarrassing my mother, because I was very scrupulous about the Rosary. I was afraid Mary would be upset about how much trouble I had concentrating. Maybe she’d smite me with a chastisement rather than smiting me because she liked me and wanted to make me God’s victim.

I was petrified of Our Lady.

My mother kept photographing the sun and doing what she could so God would show her a miracle, but little came of it. Once she swore that the patterns in the wood grain in one board of our cupboard looked like the Virgin Mary, and I could see it if I squinted. But our lives continued to be unmiraculous, ordinary, punctuated by fear and lurid fascination whenever news of apparitions came into the house.

There was one of those supposed apparitions, however, that I think might be genuinely of Divine origin. It’s not my place to pronounce that it is, but I’m inclined to believe it.

We were out in the middle of a grassy field, on a sloppy misty day in the armpit of summer. I think it might have been in the northern part of Kentucky. There were hundreds of people there, praying the Rosary, but they were nice to each other. That was the first miracle. You’ve got to understand, under ordinary circumstances there is nothing grouchier or less charitable than a mob of Apparition-seeking Catholics praying the Rosary together. The glares and hisses you usually receive are terrible. In this case, though, the people were being nice. An elderly man even invited all seven of us to kneel with him on the vast vinyl shower curtain he’d brought to use as a picnic blanket.

“There’s chiggers in the grass,” he said. “You don’t want no chiggers. Come pray over here. Thank you for sharing your family with me.”

Someone was leading the Rosary over an annoying crackly loudspeaker. After a moment, they stopped and announced that the visionary said Mary was coming. And then there was silence– eerie, complete silence.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to make a massive crowd of Apparition-seekers silent? There would usually be at least one irritating person praying in tongues or strumming an acoustic guitar, but there wasn’t. And there weren’t any birds or crickets either. All of creation kept silence.

And then there was a wind– a sudden, gentle but noisy, tickly breeze that bent all the tall grass for a moment. A pleasant rustling whhhhhhhshhhhhh like wind has in films sometimes, but rarely sounds so perfect in real life. And then the wind, too, was still.

And then I heard the thunder– a sustained, very soft rumble from somewhere far away. It went on, then paused a moment, and then it rumbled again, as if someone was speaking and then waiting for a response and then speaking again, but that person’s voice was thunder, yet the thunder was gentle and not threatening. For all I know it was something to do with the old-fashioned loudspeaker, but it didn’t sound like it was coming from the loudspeaker– and it didn’t seem likely in the total absence of wind to distrub the microphone. For all I know it was an airplane somewhere, but I didn’t see an airplane, and the noise didn’t approach and get farther away the way airplanes do. It sounded like thunder in the distance, but it never turned into a storm.

And then there was another breeze, whhhhhhhssssh. And then the loudspeaker announced that Our Lady had finished, and we would pray the Rosary again. And the noise and action of a group of Apparition-chasers praying in a field of chiggers commenced again.

And I wasn’t afraid. I wasn’t afraid that Mary would appear and open the ground to show me hell; I wasn’t afraid that she’d drive nails through my hands and make me offer it up. I wasn’t afraid that she’d be cross that I couldn’t pray the Rosary. I just prayed it, calmly, kneeling on a vinyl shower curtain in a misty field somewhere in northern Kentucky.

As I said, it probably all has a perfectly run-of-the-mill explanation. I am not the Church’s arbiter on which apparitions are of supernatural origin, nor do I wish to be. But If I were the Blessed Virgin, that’s the aura I would wish to radiate to everyone– the breeze, the silence, the voice that you hear out of nowhere but doesn’t alarm you, the charity of total strangers in an irritating place, and the total absence of fear.

We went home. We went back to reading Spirit Daily. The fear and scruples came back. Life went on as it had.

Later, I mentioned the rumbling thunder, but my parents said I imagined it.

They had heard no thunder at all.

(image via Pixabay)

Go back

beauty

catholic conspiracy alarmism

Catholic Oppositional Disorder

Public face of Catholicism

Previous Post

January 12, 2019

Steubenville? Or Ohio?

Next Post

January 15, 2019 The Government Shutdown and how it's Hurting the Vulnerable

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category abortion Abuse Advent America American Christianity angel angels Annunciation Appalachia apparition apparition chaser apparition chasers apparition culture art art review babies baby baby Jesus Bad Lip Reading bad statue contest bath beauty Bible story blog blogkeeping blood book review Brandon Sanderson breastfeeding bus Catholic catholic conspiracy alarmism Catholic Oppositional Disorder Charismatic Renewal Charlie the Cat chastity Christ Christian idenitity Christianity and Judaism Chronic Illness clean clothing COD piece comedy compassion conscience conspiracy theory conversion cop-on-black violence Crucifixion cry of the poor culture Daesh Daily Saints death death penalty devotional diaconate diaper diapers dirty disability Donald Trump Dorothy Day dream drugs Eastern Catholicism Eastern Christianity education election election update Elsewhere on Patheos empathy environment Fear feminism film review fish flashback fluffy buns food Franciscan University of Steubenville Friendship Room fun Gabriel gardening gospel hair-splitting Heaven hell heresy Hillary Clinton history Holly the Witch Holy Spirit holy war Homeschooling homosexuality horror human dignity humor Icon idol immigrants infection inter-religious dialogue Interpretation of Scripture Islam Jesus Jihad Joseph joy laity and lay vocations lamb dinner laundry lent lgbtq literature love manners Mary Medicine and Science Meditation mercy mess milk misogyny Missouri monasticism monster motherhood mourn with those mourn movies movis music mystery nature neurodiversity New Pro-Life Movement news nonsense nostalgia O antiphons obituary objectification Ohio Valley Ordinary Time ordination Ordo Amoris parable paradox Passover peanut butter personal beliefs pets philosophy Planet Charismatic poetry politics polls poop Pope Francis Pope Leo power in the Church prayer prayer request prayers preferential option for non-violence president presidential election priest primary private revelation pro-life prophecy Public face of Catholicism Pure Flix Q and A race racism random rape rape. sexuality reader's request Reckoners refugee religious trauma ressurrection Right to life Saints saints and celebrations same-sex same-sex marriage satire scandal secular feasts seder Seven Joys Seven Last Words sex sexual ethics sexuality silencing six months skid row slavery social justice Speculative fiction spiritual abuse spoon stain story suffering suffrage suffragette Sunday Gospel temple Tenebrae Responsories Terror the exorcist The Friendship Room The New Pro-Life Movement Things I Learned on the Internet tin cup traffic true story tv review Uncategorized USCCB vice and temptation violence Virtue virtue and vice war Way of the Cross whimsy whole life women's ordination work of mercy Year A

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What Christian tradition is famous for the musical "Gregorian chant"?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Methodist Roman Catholic Presbyterian Anglican