Our Lady of Knock - two questions:

1. Does anyone have a decent image of the apparition? The ones I can find on the net are too old fashioned or too small to show any detail. The statues at the shrine itself look lovely, but I can't find any closeups or detailed copies.

2. What do you think - apparition or magic lantern hoax? I tend to go with apparition precisely because the way Mary's hands were raised is such an unusual representation and the combination of figures is also odd. Also, the figures were first perceived as statues, implying three dimensions rather than a flat projection. On a practical level, the village had no electricity and if it was a hoax, someone managed to keep the secret an awfully long time.

http://www.marypages.com/Knock.htm

It's big but it may be the one you think is too old fashioned. The apparition was in 1879 but I'd say that image is post-1900. Have you found any that were drawn near the time of the apparition?

There's also a big photo of the statue of Our Lady of Knock if you haven't seen sized "Large." You have to scroll down to see it.

I don't know if it was a real apparition. I've read some claims that it was a hoax designed to draw tourists, which it has, but the Church investigated and approved it. I suppose a magic lantern could use candles or an oil lamp but don't really know. I wouldn't think they were lax in investigating back then or would have been ignorant about methods of producing illusions. It was certainly a lot harder to be canonized then than during JP II's papacy so it would seem that investigations of apparitions would have been equally rigorous.

If it seems real to you and something about it speaks to you in a spiritually enriching way, I think you should accept it as real. Everything is based on faith anyway, right?

Jesus gave us the Blessed Mother to be our mother so I think we should honor her, and choosing an image or images to visualize the BVM is an individual thing. I never consciously thought of this before but clearly it's what I've done. Our Lady of Perpetual Help and Our Lady of Guadalupe are my favorite images of Mary, I think because they're more iconic than many other images. I have favorite images of Jesus, too, of course.

Since Mary was human and God the Son took on human form as Jesus, we can visualize them a lot easier than God the Father or God the Holy Spirit. Thinking of the latter, I can't visualize images much different than the image of God creating Adam from the Sistine Chapel ceiling and the image of the Holy Spirit as a white dove, specifically the one in the round window in St. Peter's Basilica. How do you visualize pure spirit? Is it possible to visualize pure spirit?

My mother has a very beautiful print done in colored pencil sketch, but I've never been able to find a copy.

and read Leo de Bondt's amazing story. It has the ring of truth to it.
Quite beautiful.

There's a church called Our Lady of Knock near where I live, and I always thought, what's up with that? Now I know. Thanks.

real. There are a lot of hoaxes but I think this one was looked into a lot and came out o.k.

a hoax. It all boils down to which is more likely,

A. Our Lady appeared to a group of people,

or

B. Someone in 1879 was able to project a colored, moving picture 3-D without a screen ( the figures were seen in front of the church wall, not on the church wall) in a remote village without electricity in the rain AND managed to keep it a secret all these years AND never repeated it AND never used the technology elsewhere.

In any case, the meanings placed on the aspects of the apparition are what really matters; devotion to family, to scripture and to the Eucharist in the Mass.

Personally, it is just seems more likely. 3-D projection in 1879? Who could have done it??

But whatever, it is not like the faith of the church depends on this or any other apparition... It's just wonderful, that's all...