Our Lady of Knock

Knock! Knock!

Who’s there?

The Blessed Virgin Mary — and she’s with Saint Joseph and the Apostle Saint John.

Such was the vision witnessed by two women, both named Mary, as they passed their parish church on a rainy evening in August 1879.

Their country, Ireland, had suffered much in recent decades. Severe famine in the 1840s had led to many deaths and mass emigration. British overlords pressured the Irish to abandon the Catholic faith, and apostasy was rewarded. A dispirited people sought solace in alcohol, and Ireland led the world in the consumption of whiskey and other spirits.

The year 1879 was another famine year, and there was talk that it could be as bad as the Great Hunger of 1845-1852. Perhaps that was what Mary Byrne and Mary McLoughlin were discussing as they made their way home.

But they were stopped in their tracks as they saw the saints standing silently above them. Near the saints stood a lamb and an altar.

Mary Byrne ran home to tell her parents, and they returned with her. They were soon joined by others. Neighbors a half-mile away reported that they witnessed a luminous sphere enveloping the church.

A crowd gathered and stood in the rain for hours, praying the rosary. The eyewitnesses — and they were many — reported the same vision: the saints stood before them, silent, unmoved and unmoving. The tableau remained clearly visible even as night fell.

When the apparition ceased, the witnesses went home. But soon everyone in the region knew, and then everyone on the island. Pilgrims converged on Knock to pray and to take away a relic — a piece of the wall where Mary and Joseph and John had stood. Soon the wall was badly reduced.

Through the twentieth century, the shrine’s popularity grew, and so did the shrine. It has received visits from Pope Saint John Paul II, Saint Teresa of Calcutta, and Pope Francis. More than a million pilgrims make their way there every year, and the Irish government has had to build an airport nearby.

The apparition is unusual because it came with no spoken message — just a silent evocation of many elements from the biblical Book of Revelation: the Lamb, the altar, the Woman, and Saint John.

Like the Book of Revelation itself, the vision at Knock was received as an act of divine consolation — a simple confirmation that the people of Ireland were not alone in their suffering. The saints were with them. The Virgin Mary was with them. The Lamb suffered with them and in them, and his suffering was sacrificial and atoning.

The message still resounds, and not just for Ireland, but for us all.