Some pics from our recent Knock pilgrimage.

All went well. No problems with the authorities.























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Reflections on Knock - I                                                   TIA Link

The Message of Our Lady of Knock:
The Silence Veils a Secret

By Gregory Johnson

One rainy night on the 21st of August 1879, from around 7:15 to 9:30 in a small village of no more than a dozen homes, Our Lady made a unique, silent public appearance that has become known to the world as the apparition of Our Lady of Knock.

The village of Knock (which means ‘hill’ in Irish) lies in the northwest quadrant of Ireland, about 28 miles east of Croagh-Patrick, and this prophetic mountain can be seen to the west on the road north from Claremorris to Knock. (1) The pilgrimages to the shrine in the little village have steadily grown since that day, and it presently receives 1.5 million visitors a year. In 1932, Pius XI declared Our Lady of Knock to be “Queen of Heaven and of Ireland” at the closing of the Eucharistic Congress. (2) It is considered to be one of the prominent Marian Shrines of the world.


                    
                        Our Lady of Knock

I say Our Lady made a “public appearance” because, unlike other recent apparitions of Our Lady - La Salette, Lourdes, Fatima - where she appears and communicates to only one or a few seers (always youths and never members of the clergy), in this apparition she appeared to all present but remained silent. Everyone at or near the south gabled wall of the church dedicated to St. John the Baptist saw the apparition.

The only member of the clergy in the village, the pastor Archdeacon Cavanagh, could also have seen the apparition if he had simply stepped outside. His housekeeper went to tell him about it, but apparently there was some miscommunication and, as a result, once again, the clergy did not receive the gift of seeing an apparition of Our Lady.

Shortly after the apparition, an official commission of investigation was set by the Archbishop, and it recorded the testimony of 15 witnesses: men, women and children, ranging in ages from 5 to 75. At the inquiry, the commission found that, “the testimony of all, taken as a whole, was trustworthy and satisfactory.” (3). Many years later, in 1936, a second commission confirmed the verdict of the first.

Mary Byrne, a primary witness of the apparition at Knock, was 86 at the time of the second commission and spoke to the commission from her bed since she was too sick to leave. She concluded her testimony with these words, “I am clear about everything I have said and I make this statement knowing I am going before my God.” Six weeks later she died. (4)

There were others who saw the apparition (my readings suggest somewhere between 25 and 29 people), whose reports were not officially recorded to avoid redundancy.



A depiction of the apparition from an old holycard


Below is the testimony of Judith Campbell, one of the 15 official witnesses of the apparition. It is short and concise:

I live at Knock; I remember the evening and night of the 21st August last.

 Mary Byrne called at my house about eight o’clock on that evening, and asked me to come and see the great sight at the chapel.

 I ran up with her to the place, and I saw outside the chapel, at the gable of the sacristy facing the south, three figures representing St. Joseph, St. John and the Blessed Virgin Mary; also an altar, and the likeness of a lamb on it, with a cross at the back of the lamb.

 I saw a most beautiful crown on the brow or head of the Blessed Virgin. Our Lady was in the centre of the group, a small height above the other two; St. Joseph to her right, and bent towards the Virgin; St. John, as we were led to call the third figure, was to the left of the Virgin, and in his left hand he held a book; his right hand was raised with the first and second fingers closed, and the forefinger and middle finger extended as if he were teaching.

 The night came on, and it was very wet and dark.

 There was a beautiful light shining around the figures or likenesses that we saw.

 I went within a foot of them; none of us spoke to them; we believed they were St. Joseph and St. John the Evangelist, because some years ago, statues of St. Joseph and the Evangelist were in the chapel at Knock.

 All the figures were in white or in a robe of silver-like whiteness; St. John wore a small mitre. Though it was raining, the place in which the figures appeared was quite dry.

Everything within the sphere of the image remained completely dry including the grass and part of the church wall.

The deliberate silence

The apparition was completely silent. The only sounds heard that night were those of the wind and the ever-increasing rain, which eventually became a downpour. But we know that the actions of Divine Providence must always have an ordered purpose. As Fr. William J. Smith said, “There was no message of any kind given, no word was uttered by any of the three celestial visitors. Yet the apparition must have a meaning, an extraordinary, deep and divine significance” (5)

Consequently, no one should think that the silence of the apparition is an oversight of Our Lady. With certainty, we can affirm that Our Lady willed that this apparition should remain completely silent and that this silence serves a purpose. What is that purpose?

We know that all of the recent apparitions of Our Lady, both before and after Knock, contained secrets:

• La Salette (1846) contained secrets such as ‘Rome will become the seat of the Antichrist” that could be revealed in 1858;
  
• Lourdes had 3 secrets that were for Bernadette alone and were never revealed;
  
• Fatima (1917) included 3 secrets: 2 were soon revealed, and the third was to be revealed in the event of Lucia’s death or by 1960. John XXIII refused to reveal the secret in 1960. Later in 2000, a bogus secret was revealed by Cardinals Bertone and Ratzinger on behalf of John Paul II, but it did not find great acceptance among the faithful. They still await the release of the authentic warning of Our Lady to the world.

Pilgrims in the 1880s flocking to the apparition site outside the old chapel at Knock.

Now, since every recent apparition of Our Lady contained a secret, one is induced to ask whether or not there would be a secret at Knock. Perhaps it should even be expected.

So, I ask, shouldn’t this deliberate silence willed by Our Lady at Knock be seen as some form of secret? A secret that harmonizes with the secrets of La Salette, Lourdes, and Fatima? Isn’t it reasonable to affirm this?

Shouldn’t one ask if the silence acted as a sort of veil or shroud, concealing a profound message? I believe this is the deep-seated purpose of the silence and suggest to speculate upon what that secret would be using the evidence that we have at hand.

One closing note: I do not agree with those who say that the silence itself is the message. The message of Our Lady of Knock is not to promote silence.

Those who try to present this silence as the main message that Our Lady wished to convey are promoting a passivity that pressures the faithful to remain inactive and just pray in face of the grave crises in the Church and society we face today. To keep silent before the onslaughts of an evil world and a corrupt Hierarchy is to suppress the Catholic militant spirit.

As will be shown in future articles, I believe that the message of Knock is the opposite of a lifestyle of “peace” where “all my cares and troubles cease,”(6) a phrase from the chorus of the popular Lady of Knock song that has effectively become the modern day theme song of Our Lady of Knock.

Our Lady of Knock, pray for us.

• “We have a view of the celebrated Croagh-Patrick from the road to Knock…” Tom Neary, Custodians of Knock Shrine, Co. Mayo, Ireland, I Saw Our Lady, 1st ed. 1977, 5th ed. 1995. p. 24.Footnote 1
• William J. Smith, The Mystery of Knock, Our Lady in Ireland, NY: Paulist Press, 1954, p. 20
• Ibid, p. 21
• See here
• W.J. Smith, The Mystery of Knock, p. 16
• Chorus of Lady of Knock lyrics by James Kilbane: ”Golden Rose, Queen of Ireland, all my cares and troubles cease, as I kneel with love before you, Lady of Knock, my Queen of Peace”. Official Catholic website of Our Lady of Knoc

Reflections on Knock - II

Our Lady of Knock &
the Apparition at La Salette
By Gregory Johnson


In my first article, the apparition of Our Lady of Knock (1879) was introduced to the readers. I pointed out that, as in the other three recent major apparitions – La Salette (1846), Lourdes (1858), and Fatima (1917) – Our Lady did not appear to the clergy. There were secrets in these three apparitions; in the case of Knock the secret is veiled in the silence of the apparition. I also presented the testimony of one of the official 15 witnesses at Knock. I plan to continue the analysis of those testimonies in the succeeding articles.

The apparition at Knock, because of the absence of a spoken or written message, is usually set aside and considered less important than La Salette, Lourdes or Fatima. But I believe that, for those who have eyes to see, Knock is as important as the other three apparitions and should be considered as one of the four major apparitions of recent history. Today I will compare the apparition of Our Lady of Knock with that of Our Lady of La Salette.

Apparition of Our Lady of La Salette


Our Lady of Knock with a solemn St. Joseph & St. John pointing to the Apocalypse

On a lone mountainside near La Salette, France, on the eve of Our Lady of Sorrows, during the month of the Holy Cross, on the beautiful day of September 19, 1846, Our Lady appeared to two peasant shepherd children named Melanie Calvat and Maximin Giraud. She wept almost for the duration of the apparition, sometimes burying her tear-covered face in her own hands. Melanie would lament that she could not console the beautiful Lady.

In this apparition the Mother of God spoke to the children, asking prayers and penance to help her prevent the arm of her Son from falling over mankind for their sins. She also gave secrets to each of the children. Twice, toward the end of this apparition, Our Lady said, “Well, my children, you will make this known to all my people.”

Here are some of the words she spoke that are part of those secrets she gave to the children to spread:

• Rome will lose the faith and become the seat of the Antichrist;
  
• Woe to the Princes of the Church who will not be occupied except to pile up riches upon riches, to safeguard their authority and to dominate with pride;
  
• The priests, ministers of my Son, by their wicked lives, their irreverence and their impiety in the celebration of the Holy Mysteries, by their love of money, their love of honors and pleasures, the priests have become cesspools of impurity;
  
• The Church will have a frightful crisis;
  
• Many convents are no longer houses of God, but the pastures of Asmodeas [the Devil of impurity] and his sort;
  
• The Church will be in eclipse, the world will be in dismay.

Knock & La Salette: affinities & contrasts

As for the affinities, when we compare Knock and La Salette one notices that, besides the presence of secrets and the absence of any clergy, there is another common trait: Our Lady is not appearing inside any Church structure.

The four recent apparitions do not take place inside a church, a convent, a monastery or the like. The apparition of La Salette is on a mountainside, Lourdes is in a grotto, Knock is deliberately and conspicuously just outside of a church that is a few feet away, and Fatima takes place in the fields at the Cova da Iria.



Our Lady wept almost continuously at La Salette, but also spoke to the children
As with Knock, Our Lady of La Salette would appear only once; at Lourdes and Fatima she appeared to the seers multiple times.

Also, as with Knock, the color of Our Lady of La Salette’s clothing was described as something like a silvery white and she appeared in a brilliant sphere of light that did not harm the eyes. She was “clothed with the sun.”

Both Knock and La Salette had been suffering from potato famines that Our Lady at La Salette said was a consequence of man’s sins, especially the profanation of her Son’s name and not keeping holy Sunday, the Lord’s day.

As for the contrasts, at Knock not once would Our Lady look down at the people watching before her or change her expression, and that evening the only tears were those from the sky, rain. In fact, in some ways, the contrast between the two apparitions could not have been greater.

At La Salette (1846), it was a beautiful sunny day in the French Alps, but Our Lady was constantly weeping. Thirty three years later at Knock, it was the opposite. It was an ominously dark, rainy and gloomy day, but Our Lady shed no tears within a bright, dry, splendorous sphere of light. The witnesses saw in her eyes only the fixed, resolute gaze upward of one in a state of profound prayer.

Of course, there is also the obvious contrast between the spoken message of La Salette and the silent message of Knock. I have already mentioned that I believe the silence at Knock could be seen as a form of secret. One could also ask whether or not the silence of the Knock apparition is a consequence of an infidelity.

Did the actions of a person or persons, especially if they are members of the Catholic Hierarchy, cause this to be a silent apparition? Did some betrayal cause Divine Providence to “say” in 1879 something analogous to what Our Lord said to the “wicked and adulterous generation” of His time: “A sign shall not be given” (Mt 16:4)?



A mystery veiled in the silence and symbols of the apparition of Our Lady at Knock

It could be noted that the saintly Pope Pius IX began his reign in June 1846, just a few months before the apparition of La Salette and died in 1878, the year before the apparition at Knock. He was succeeded by the liberal pontificate of Leo XIII: the reigning Pope during the silent apparition of Our Lady of Knock.

Let me observe that during the entire pontificate of Leo XIII the true Catholics, the Ultramontanes, were obliged to be silent about those enemies – liberal Catholics – who had been condemned and removed from the scene by Pius IX. We may say that with Leo XIII the militancy of the Church was silenced, that she entered a dark, long and rainy night. Likewise, tolerance toward the errors of the Revolution was exalted, and the Revolution entered a sunny day that prepared Modernism, Progressivism and Vatican II. Doesn’t the silence of Knock have a relation to this papal silence?

Speaking of infidelity, there is another point of contrast between the two apparitions: La Salette received from the Vatican a kind of “gag order”… Knock did not. In 1915, a year after the death of Pope St. Pius X, under the more compromising reign of Pope Benedict XV, there was a decree issued from the Vatican forbidding public commentaries on the secret messages of La Salette. This decree seems to be still in effect even in the present-day scandalous reign of Francis I. We are allowed to have the text, read it and pass it on to friends. But we may not publicly comment on the secret messages of La Salette.

So, we see that a type of silence was placed upon the apparition at La Salette. Perhaps Our Lady, Queen of Prophets, had this future event in mind when she remained silent at Knock. It would be difficult, even absurd, to try to silence a silent message.

Knock & La Salette: a significant connection

At La Salette, after Our Lady said, “Well, my children, you will make this known to all my people,” she rose to leave the children, paused and looked in silence toward the southeast, toward Rome. At Knock, we see that, from the south gable, Our Lady seems once again to be looking silently toward the southeast, toward Rome - toward Rome and toward La Salette, since both lie in the same direction from Knock.

And as we shall see in the next article, on the very same day as the miraculous apparition of Our Lady of Knock, August 21, 1879, there was something very significant and important also happening in La Salette.

Our Lady of Knock, pray for us.
Our Lady of La Salette, pray for us.




I am brother of Mary Byrne, who has given her evidence already. I live near the chapel of Knock. My age is 20 years. On the occasion when my sister came at about eight o’clock on the evening of August 21 into our house, she exclaimed: “Come, Dominick, and see the image of the Blessed Virgin as she has appeared to us down at the chapel.” I said, “‘What image?” And then she told me, as she has already described it for Your Reverence in her testimony.

She told me all she was after seeing. I then went with her, and by this time some 10 or 12 people had collected around the place, namely, around the ditch or wall fronting the gable where the vision was being seen, and to the south of the schoolhouse.

Then I beheld the three likenesses or figures that have been already described – the Blessed Virgin, St. Joseph, St. John - as my sister called the Bishop, who was like one preaching, with his hands raised towards the shoulder, and the forefinger and middle finger pointedly set; the other two fingers compressed by the thumb; in his left he held a book. He was so turned that he looked half towards the altar and half towards the people. The eyes of the images could be seen; they were like figures, in as much as they did not speak I was filled with wonder at the sight I saw.

I was so affected that I shed tears. I continued looking on for fully an hour, and then I went away to visit Mrs. Campbell, who was in a dying state. When we returned the vision had disappeared.


Reflections on Knock - III

Our Lady Appears at Knock During
Her Crowning at La Salette
By Gregory Johnson

Thirty-three years after the Apparition of La Salette, a solemn papal canonical coronation of Our Lady took place and the Basilica of La Salette was consecrated. Three different sources report the event:

• “On 21 August 1879, Pope Leo XIII formally granted a Canonical Coronation to the image at the Basilica of Our Lady of La Salette.” (1)
  
• “An impressive ceremony took place at La Salette, in which the statue of Our Lady was solemnly crowned by the Papal Legate, the Cardinal Archbishop of Paris, before a vast assembly of Bishops, priests and lay people.” (2)
  
• “In 1879, the Basilica would at last be consecrated and the statue of Our Lady of La Salette would, by the Pope’s leave, be crowned. Officiating at the consecration was the Cardinal Archbishop of Toulouse, and the coronation was carried out by the Cardinal Archbishop of Paris, acting as papal delegate for this rite. Bishops and Archbishops in numbers were on hand and with them came pilgrims from every diocese (3)

Our Lady of Knock appeared in a position of silent plea

On that same day, a day that must be acknowledged as the public and official recognition by the Church of the apparition of La Salette, the Mother of God was also appearing in the little village of Knock, Ireland. In other words, on August 21, 1879, we have Our Lady of Knock gazing in the direction of La Salette and Rome on the exact day, perhaps even the same hour, as the ceremonies recognizing the Apparition of La Salette were occurring.

If we are looking for messages and meanings in the silent apparition of Knock, here I believe Our Lady could not be clearer. Her appearing on that specific day means she is making a connection with La Salette and its message. She is letting us know that the apparition at Knock must be seen in light of the dire message sent at La Salette.

By appearing precisely on that day, she is signifying that the Knock apparition should be seen as part or a development of the La Salette apparition. I see no other possible conclusion. Authentic apparitions of Our Lady are far too rare for this to be a mere coincidence of dates.

It is interesting to note that the precise times of the beginning and the end of the Knock apparition are unknown. As can be read in the testimony of Margaret Byrne, below, the apparition began before anyone was there to see it.

By all accounts, Our Lady was appearing before anyone arrived; she remained while people were coming and going, and she stayed even after everyone had left. Actually, in a house neighboring the site where the apparition took place, a lady named Mrs. Campbell was dying, and during the apparition someone shouted for help from her house. The village people who were still viewing the apparition ran to help the dying lady; when they returned the apparition was gone.

In other apparitions, Our Lady seems to arrive only when there are witnesses, who also watch her leave. In this case, it was the opposite; Our Lady arrived before the witnesses and remained even after the viewers left.

One possible message that Our Lady might be sending is that the time and duration of the appearance of Our Lady at Knock was not dependent on the presence or absence of witnesses, but on what was happening at that time with the ceremonies of La Salette.



Our Lady of La Salette appeared to the children and spoke her dire warnings

If we try to find a complement for the message of La Salette in the silent symbolism of Knock, we see that the crisis in the Church prophesized in La Salette are confirmed by the presence of St. John, who appeared as a Bishop with a book – probably the Apocalypse – in his hand. This is tantamount to him saying: “The crisis that Our Lady predicted in La Salette, which will make Rome become the seat of the Antichrist and will represent the eclipse of the Church, I also prophesized in the Apocalypse.”

So, we should understand the crisis as something permitted by God for His final victory and greater glory. For the glory of the Lamb of God, which also appears luminous over the altar in Knock as well as in the Apocalypse. It is something that invites us not to despair, but to trust Our Lady and Our Lord.

Also the presence of St. Joseph, Protector of the Church, in the Knock apparition sends the message: “No matter how grave the crisis may be, I will continue to protect the Church and lead her to a safe port as I did with the Holy Family. You, the faithful, must have recourse to me and my Most Holy Spouse, the Virgin Mary, in this crisis.” Again, the message is to increase our confidence in the supernatural.

I believe that these points are valid developments of the message of La Salette, which we must take into consideration given that Our Lady chose to appear in Knock on the precise same day when her apparition of La Salette was being officially recognized by the Church.

Our Lady of Knock, Pray for Us.
Our Lady of La Salette, Pray for Us



I, Margaret Byrne, live near Knock chapel. I am sister to Mary Byrne, who has seen the vision. I remember the night of 21 of August, I left my house at half-past seven o’clock, and went to the chapel and locked it. I came out to return home. I saw something luminous or bright at the south gable, but it never entered my head that it was necessary to see or inquire what it was. I passed by and went home.

Shortly after, about eight o’clock, my niece, Catherine Murray, called me out to see the Blessed Virgin and the other saints that were standing at the south gable of the chapel. I went out then and ran up to see what was to be seen.

 I there beheld the Blessed Virgin with a bright crown on her head, and St. Joseph to her right, his head inclined a little towards Our Blessed Lady, and St. John the Evangelist to her left, eastwards, holding in his left hand a book of the Gospels, and his right hand raised the while, as if in the attitude of preaching to the people who stood before him at the ditch.

The Virgin appeared with her hands uplifted as in prayer, with eyes turned towards Heaven, and wearing a lustrous crown. I saw an altar there. It was surrounded with a bright light, nay, with a light at times dazzling, and so too were the other figures, who were similarly surrounded.


The solemn consecration of the Sanctuary of Our Lady of La Salette, above, was made on August 21, 1879, exactly when the Knock apparition was taking place

• (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_La_Salettehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_La_Salette
• Msgr. Michael Walsh, The Apparition at Knock; A Critical Analysis of Facts and Evidence, Veritas Pub., 2008, p. 82
• John S. Kennedy, Light on the Mountain: The Story of La Salette, NY: Image Books, 1956, p. 162

Posted June 3, 2015

 
Posted May 25, 2015

 
Posted August 20, 2014

Great to see. I miss the camaraderie I had with many in the photos. I hope we can all meet again soon like the good old days. 

Great to see. I miss the camaraderie I had with many in the photos. I hope we can all meet again soon like the good old days.

Yes indeed. You are welcome to come to our Masses at any stage. We have the only true sacraments, which are pleasing to God in Ireland.

Approval means you are allowed to believe it, it doesn't mean it's true at all.

And what do you mean which false prediction? Have you ever even read what Our Lady of La Salette is claimed to have said? There are prophecies of apocalypse on the scale of Revelations followed by long periods of harmony and worldwide Catholicism, etc. and SPECIFIC years were given. It was all meant to happen before the 1800s were finished.

Sorry, but you dont seem to have answered my question. Which prophecy precisely?

the predictions of its witnesses turned out to be false? They even gave specific dates for when their prophecies would happen, and they never came.

Read more carefully please.
So I repeat. Which predictions? Which prophecies (within the secret)?

Where was Mass offered in Knock?

Forlorn, St Patrick has asked three times (Replies 5, 8 and 10) what prophecy you speak of.

I have read the link you posted and can find nothing in it to answer the question. I too would like to have answer. Why won't you answer his question?

Apart from the approval found in the link you posted there are these.

You are either blind or ill-willed. From the link I gave you:

"In the year 1864 Lucifer, together with a great number of devils, will be loosed from hell; little by little they will abolish the faith, and that even in persons consecrated to God; they will so blind them, that without a special grace, these persons will take on the spirit of these evil angels; a number of religious houses will lose the faith entirely and cause many souls to be damned."

"In the year 1865, the abomination will be seen in the holy places; in the convents the flowers of the Church will putrefy, and the devil will establish himself as king of all hearts. Let those who are at the head of religious communities be on their guard concerning the persons they are to receive, because the devil will use all his malice to introduce into religious orders persons given to sin, for disorders and love of carnal pleasures will be widespread over the whole earth. France, Italy, Spain and England will be at war, blood will flow in the streets; Frenchmen will fight Frenchmen, Italian with Italian; then there will be a general war which will be appalling. For some time God will no longer remember France or Italy, because the Gospel of Jesus Christ is no longer known. The wicked will unleash all their malice; even in homes there will be killing and mutual massacres."

...

"Then there will be peace, the reconciliation of God with men; Jesus Christ will be served, adored and glorified; charity will flourish everywhere. The new kings will be the right arm of Holy Church, which will be strong, humble, pious, poor, zealous and imitative of the virtues of Jesus Christ. The Gospel will be preached everywhere, and men will make great strides in the faith, because there will be unity among Jesus Christ's workers and men will live in the fear of God.

"This peace among men will not last long: 25 years of abundant harvests will make them forget that the sins of men are the cause of all the woes which happen on earth.
"A precursor of the Antichrist, with his troops drawn from many nations, will wage war against the true Christ, sole Savior of the world; e will shed much blood and will seek to annihilate the cult of God so as to be regarded as a god."

So according to La Salette there should've been a huge war between France, Italy, Spain and England starting in 1865, followed by new Catholic kings in all those countries starting a religious revival and great strides in faith before 25 years of abundant harvest, after which a precursor to the anti-christ would wage war with all these kingdoms and against God. These things did not happen.