Apparitions
16. Mar, 2009 
6 Comments
My faith was recently ‘rekindled’ this Sunday … no it’s not due to the recent alleged ‘apparition’ of Jesus’s face on a cushion in Reunion island …
This ‘apparition’ reminds me of Touni minuit: the mysterious lycanthropic being which appeared in Mauritius in the aftermath of cyclone Hollanda. Mauritius was left in the dark for weeks, without electricity: unscrupulous individuals took advantage of this situation and unresolved crimes started to multiply, leaving the police helpless as usual. Mauritians suffered from a collective hysteria and had visions of the notorious Touni minuit, which they held responsible for the crime wave. (Worryingly, groups of Muslim vigilantes started a hunt for the supernatural being and even invaded a catholic shrine in an attempt to destroy the spirit: religious and political figures had to intervene to quench communal tensions …)
For me, the ‘apparition’ of the figure on the cushion in Reunion, a very Catholic island, is to be understood in the context of the uncertainties faced by the islanders. They recently held protests (and even riots) due to unequal treatment (compared with French people in France) and rising costs of living. Their difficult context is analogous to the uncertainties faced by Mauritians, when they had collective visions of Touni Minuit.
What rekindled my faith then? Two events on Sunday:
On my way to church, I saw a young man (probably my age), sitting on the pavement in front of a gaming arcade (casino pou bann morysiens) holding his head in his hands. I did not judge him, neither did I consider his white skin colour (he could have been of any colour) … I felt empathy for him. This tragic scene moved me and I was thinking about him while walking towards the church service.
Then, during the sermon at Church, Father Jim, the parish priest, talked about why we should pray and help the poor. Developing his sermon on the theme “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine“, he pointed out that, in our relationship with God, there should be no vested interest. In society, we never tend to help people ‘freely’: we help them because one day, or somehow, they will help us back, or return the favour. Well, with God, it’s not the same. We should not pray God because he will grant us wishes (as if He were forced to); we must pray Him because it is right to do so and that He truly deserves to be prayed and loved. We must not help the poor to get something in return: we must help them because they are poor, they need help and it is simply right to grant them the help them.
These are what fuel my faith: real life situations and clear sermons with real life implications … not obscure apparitions.
Just like the recent true story in Triolet, an inhabitant found a mango with the shape of the god Ganesh!
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For the chair I dont understand tro la… “”the ‘apparition’ of the figure on the cushion in Reunion”" – I dont see **am confuse**
@ Yashvin Yeah I’ve seen this blog lol
@ If you look closely at the cushion, the ‘folds’ on the cushion look like a face … you can see a nose, the forehead, two eyes …
@Bruno :
If you look closely at the cushion, the ‘folds’ on the cushion look like a face … you can see a nose, the forehead, two eyes …
And how did they know if was jesus?
Was his ID card number somewhere? LOL!
lol! that Jesus face is funny! From the folds you can see that he’s smiling! I always wonder why when people see folds like in this case or supposed apparitions they instantly attribute it to god or something wicked. Can’t it just be a coincidence? A little piece of art which happened “par le plus pur des hasards”.