There's no explanation of how they finally decided, which makes me curious. I mean, it's not like miracles leave evidence. You can't exactly prove that Jesus intentionally zapped his likeness onto that dude's french toast. When somebody sees the Virgin Mary floating over a corn field, you can't follow her footprints back to heaven. Holy folks don't leave DNA behind.
In this case, there was only one witness. Adele Brise, a 28-year-old Belgian immigrant who had lost an eye in a childhood accident, saw a woman in white hovering over the ground. On the third visit, the woman identified herself as Mary.
Which seems a little redundant to me, because so far nobody's spotted a woman floating in the sky who identified herself as Flo, the Prudential Insurance lady. Really, does Jesus' mother need to introduce herself? You wouldn't think so. When I met Johnny Depp, though, his first words to me were, "Hi, I'm Johnny Depp," so maybe this isn't as strange as it sounds.
Mary conveyed a message to Ms. Brise. "I am the queen of heaven," she declared. This strikes me as tacky, like what Zsa Zsa Gabor would say if she was dating Russell Crowe. It's definitely egotistical, though I bet it gets her a good table at Le Cirque. Still, this could be sour grapes on my part. "I'm a relatively popular blogger" doesn't get me extra chocolate sprinkles on my latté.
Mary told Ms. Brise to pray for the conversion of sinners, and then said something that strikes me as bizarre. "You received the Holy Communion this morning and that is well. But you must do more."
See, as someone with nearly a degree from a major university, I'm a logical kind of guy. Since I was a kid, I've used the various bits of hard data provided by the Bible and a semi-religious education to piece together a picture of heaven. Mary's declaration, though, just raises a question in my head.
How, exactly, does she know when somebody's had communion? I can only come up with two options. Either Mary is watching us too, or somebody told her.
We all know from Charlton Heston movies that God is the all-powerful dude who watches over us. Maybe Jesus watches over us. But Mary? I never thought she was looking. I've always pictured her like the First Lady of heaven, shaking hands with kids and exhorting people to recycle.
Frankly, I'm not thrilled with the idea of a whole bunch of people up there watching. In fact, I'm picturing some kind of sports box up in the clouds. It makes me wonder if there's a vendor who occasionally wanders by selling beer and peanuts.
I'm going to scratch this option. I don't like picturing heaven with a VIP area. It conjures up an unpleasant scene where regular humans are kept away from the special folks by a velvet rope. "That's not fair!" your sainted grandmother yells at them. "I wanna look at earth!"
"Yeah?" Mary snaps. "Check back when you give birth to the Light of the World!"
Instead, I'm going to assume that somebody told her, and by "somebody" I mean either Jesus or God. But honestly, are they going to update Mary every day about who went to communion? That'd make Reader's Digest look interesting. Maybe this Brise woman was like the Brett Favre of Christians, and over coffee every morning they updated her stats. It still strikes me as gossipy, though. I'd hoped that information re my immortal soul would be shared on a strictly need-to-know basis. I mean, I'd think less of Santa if, a day or two before Christmas, some elf's girlfriend walked up to me and said, "You're not getting any presents, because Santa thinks you're a jerk."
Still, it seems pretty clear something happened in Wisconsin. After the visions, Ms. Brise built a church and a school that still stand today. I'm thinking that's what swayed the Vatican, and it'll buy reasonable credence from me. Because the folks who see Jesus on a tortilla usually just end up making nachos, and Santa and I both think that stinks.
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