In 1879 in a remote village called
Knock in Ireland there appeared at the gable end of the church a vision which
30 people witnessed. The vision lasted
for about an hour. The people saw a lamb
standing on an altar and surrounded by angels.
To the left of the altar was Our Lady with St. Joseph on her left and
St. John the Evangelist on her right. No
words were spoken, and yet it said so much.
This happened at a time of terrible poverty and not long after the great
potato famine which wiped out most of the population. It seemed to be a message of hope and
encouragement from heaven, saying to the people ‘You are on the right track and
God is with you.’ The people then had
also been going through terrible suffering for their faithfulness to the
mass. They were persecuted in a savage
way, but they did not give up. They
believed, as we do, that the bread and wine really and truly becomes the Body
and Blood of Jesus in each mass. This
vision seemed to confirm this. Jesus,
the Lamb of God, was at the centre, being worshipped by the angels and accompanied
by Our Lady and the saints. We usually talk
about this apparition as a Marian apparition, but it would be more accurate to
say it was an apparition of Jesus on the altar accompanied by Our Lady and the
two saints. Where Jesus is, Mary will
always be, but Jesus must be at the centre.
As you know in each mass we refer
to Jesus on the altar as ‘the Lamb of God.’
After the consecration—when the bread and wine become the Body and Blood
of Christ—the priest holds up the host and says, ‘Behold the Lamb of God. Behold him who takes away the sins of the
world. Blessed are those called to the
supper of the Lamb.’ Jesus is the Lamb
who was sacrificed for us to take away our sins, so that we could be united to
God.
1900 years before the apparition
at Knock when John the Baptist was baptizing people, he saw Jesus approaching
and he said to the people, ‘Look! There
is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.’ And later when some of John’s disciples were
wondering about who Jesus was, John said to them, ‘He is the one to follow, not
me. I am not important.’
John was sent to prepare the
people for the coming of Jesus. He
called people to repent, to change their ways and then he pointed to Jesus as
the one sent by God; Jesus was the one who would save his people from their
sins. Jesus himself said that a greater
man than John had never been born and John’s birth was accompanied by strange
and wonderful signs. His father
Zachariah had a vision of an angel who told him that his wife Elizabeth would
conceive and have a child. He was to be
called John. As a sign to Zachariah that
this would take place he was made dumb and could not speak until the time when
the child was born and named. When John
grew up he went out into the wilderness by himself until he began preaching
publicly. He was so outspoken that he
was arrested and eventually killed for telling King Herod that it was wrong for
him to live with his brother’s wife.
When you connect the events of
Knock with the life of John the Baptist time seems to disappear. They both speak of the same thing and what
they are telling us is that Jesus is the one to follow. Jesus is the one who comes to us on the altar
in each mass and although we suffer and struggle, God is with us so we have
nothing to be afraid of.
We have been given an
extraordinary gift in the mass: the gift of Jesus himself. We can receive him every day if we wish. There is no greater gift than this because it
is the gift of God himself.
There is the
Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
Blessed are
those called to the supper of the Lamb.
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