Tag Archives: Catholicism

Sighting of Jesus during a storm on the sea

Text:

So this is the story of how my grandmother saw Jesus on her boat ride to America.

My grandmother was in Italy during World War II, and Pacentro, where she was from, was a major bombing area for the Allies. So what they would do during World War II is that they took cities that didn’t have a lot of historical importance, and were very lowly densely populated-like farming villages and places like that. Back then, bombing a place was a show of power, basically. So it was a huge bombing site during WWII, and my grandmother fled Pacentro on a boat going to the US. She was very young, probably 12 or 13. She was on the boat, coming to the US, and she was very strongly Catholic.

The boat was very rocky- they were caught in a storm coming to New York, and everyone thought they were going to die. That’s how severe the storm is, they were all worried, they were all praying, all sort of getting their affairs in order as best they could when they were on a boat and going to a different country. And so, she thinks she’s going to die. The boat is rocking severely- there’s waves crashing on the bow, water sloshing over the edge, you couldn’t even go outside, everyone was hunkered down inside the ship.

So grandmother is down in the hull, she’s sick, she’s been on this boat for a week and a half, and she falls asleep. And in her dream, she sees Jesus in the waves, and Jesus looks at her- she’s standing on the bow of the boat, Titanic style, and Jesus is standing on the waves, he turns to her and says, “Celeste, you’re going to survive. You’re going to be OK. Everyone is going to live.” And when she wakes up, the storm has completely passed. So it’s sunny, the water is calm, there is no storm for the rest of the trip, they make it through the storm and back to America with no issue. So she believed that Jesus came down and told her- basically worked a miracle- she believed that there was some aspect of God that helped her arrive safely.

Context:

The informant was recounting an earlier story told by her grandmother, who was born in Italy before immigrating to the United States.

Analysis:

One of the first things I noticed about this story is how it’s very similar to a specific Bible story within the New Testament. It reminded me of the story of Jesus encountering the disciples during a storm by walking on water to approach their boat (Matthew 14:22-33). As religions tend to play a part in folklore, and as the first teller of this story was from a heavily Catholic region of Italy, this probably isn’t a coincidence. There could be an element of the grandmother finding comfort in their religion, in the face of almost hopeless circumstances, with how there really isn’t much else for them to do in the situation. When you can turn to no one else, you turn to God.

Reiki Meets Catholicism

Text: “My mom has been practicing Reiki for a long time. It is an energy healing practice from Japan, also known as hands-on healing. The practitioner places their hands on the patient and uses their own energy and emotion to either detect energy from the patient or transfer energy. My mom does it kind of casually, but she can sense tension and soreness on someone else’s body just by hovering her hands over them. Whenever she knows I’m nervous or tense, she hovers her hands over my shoulders and transfers healing energy into them. I’m not very knowledgeable in Reiki, but it’s a weird thing where you feel warm and tingly in the areas that you’ve had energy transferred into, and the tension does dissolve.” 

Context: My informant – a 21-year-old woman from Los Angeles, California – explained the role Reiki has played in her family and in the relationship she has with her mom. She explained to me that this was something she remembered her mom doing for her whole life, and she cannot doubt the healing power of it because she truly feels that it makes her feel better and it relieves a lot of tension in her mind and body. She went on to explain that her mom is also Catholic and comes from a Mexican family of witches, which she said is a weird mix because in Catholicism, “witchcraft is the Devil’s work.” However, her mom connects her beliefs and cultures because she believes that the healing properties that Jesus had were actually Reiki practices, or some form of it. My informant explained to me that the connection her mom made between Japanese and Mexican culture – along with the role of religion – has shaped her own beliefs regarding Catholicism, and she feels like it has made her feel a bit more connected to her own spirituality.

Analysis: The practice of Reiki within my informant’s family exemplifies a unique blend of cultural beliefs and healing traditions that bridge diverse cultural and religious backgrounds. Reiki, originating from Japan as an energy healing practice, has been integrated into my informant’s family dynamics and relationship with her mother as a source of comfort and healing. Her approach to Reiki reflects a personal and intuitive understanding of energy healing, where she uses her own energy and emotion to detect and alleviate tension and soreness in others. This hands-on approach to healing underscores the interconnectedness of mind, body, and spirit within Reiki practice.

What stands out is my informant’s mother’s ability to reconcile her Catholic faith with her practice of Reiki, despite potential religious tensions associated with practices labeled as “witchcraft.” By interpreting Jesus’ healing miracles as akin to Reiki principles, her mother synthesizes elements of Japanese and Mexican culture with her Catholic beliefs, creating a unique and deeply personal spiritual perspective. For my informant, witnessing her mother’s integration of Reiki into her family’s spiritual and healing practices has shaped her own beliefs and sense of spirituality. The blending of cultural influences and healing traditions fosters a sense of connection to her heritage and spirituality, providing a holistic framework that embraces both diversity and personal growth.

Dancing With the Devil

Text: “My grandma told me this story from a time when she was young and she liked to party in downtown Juarez, Mexico. In the late 1950s, my grandma was in her late teens, and one night she went out to party. As she became drunk throughout the night and enjoyed her time with her friends, a Tejano with a tall figure and blue eyes asked her to dance. She said yes, and as the night went on, the dance floor became more vibrant and she lost track of time. Suddenly, the doors shut and no one was allowed in or out. Because the dance floor was so full, people couldn’t see that this man had the feet of a goat. She tried to leave the club, but the man chased her to the door, and the lights went out. One by one, people started to get murdered, and there was an eerie laughter in the background. She noticed what was going on, then she was able to find an escape route through the back of the building.”

Context: My informant – a 29-year-old man from Las Cruces, New Mexico – told me this story, drawing on the legend he and his siblings would hear from their grandmother as they progressed from adolescence to young adulthood. He explained to me that this was a story he heard from his grandma whenever he would come home late or be out with friends, and he believed it basically served as a warning to not spend too much time out of the house and away from family or else the Devil will come for you.

Analysis: Upon investigating this legend, I came across a news article titled “San Antonio’s Dancing Devil of El Camaroncito.” In this article, the story parallels the one my informant told me almost to a tee, describing a man dressed to the nines who wooed all the ladies in attendance and swept them off their feet. However, as the night went on, people started to recognize that his feet were not those of a human, and after people started to panic, the man fled out of the nightclub through an open window. While the story described in the news article is almost exactly the same as the one my informant told me at the beginning, my informant’s version takes a darker turn, with the dancing Devil going on a murderous rampage in the club. I was curious to understand what might have caused the two stories to end on two drastically different notes.

My informant heard this story from his grandmother, a devout Catholic woman. As someone who also grew up in a Catholic family, I know that the over consumption of alcohol is considered to be a sin. In his grandmother’s version of the legend, she had indulged excessively in alcohol, and that ultimately brought her face-to-face with the Devil. Among a crowd of excessively intoxicated people, the Devil began to claim his sinful souls, stealing their lives and taking them back to Hell for their sins. This story told to my informant by his grandmother is similar to an example provided by Larry Danielson in his chapter on religious folklore. Danielson recalls the anxieties recounted to him by Roman Catholic friends and family before their first communions as they “had been warned by their elders, sometimes by their parochial school teachers, that if they chewed the communion wafer, their mouths would fill with blood” (50). Danielson describes how this is a prime example of religious folk belief, as it isn’t upheld by the institution but instead through oral tradition.

My informant’s legend is an example of religious folklore. His grandmother told him and his younger family members this story as they approached the age where they would begin to drink alcohol and party with their friends, and in order to dissuade them from doing so, his grandmother told them of the time where she committed that same sin, and the Devil almost came for her for it. Of course the Bible doesn’t say that if a teenager goes and gets drunk at the club, the Devil will appear and take their soul; but pulling on a collective fear in a shared faith will hopefully dissuade my informant from indulging in sin, at least in his grandmother’s eyes. 

References:

Danielson, Larry. “Religious Folklore.” In Folk Groups and Folklore Genres: An Introduction, edited by Elliott Oring, 45-69. Utah State University Press, 1986.

Shadows, Chasing. “San Antonio’s Dancing Devil of El Camaroncito.” San Antonio Current, 31 Oct. 2011, https://www.sacurrent.com/news/san-antonios-dancing-devil-of-el-camaroncito-2250845. 

The Color Changing Rosary

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Houston, Texas
Performance Date: 3/30/23
Primary Language: English

Context:

19-year-old S was raised Catholic in Houston, Texas. When she was in 9th grade, she attended her first overnight church retreat. During this retreat, she experienced the Catholic tradition of Adoration, in which the body of Christ in the form of the sacramental bread is displayed for prayer in the church.

Text:

During Adoration, S prayed her rosary, which was a gift from her grandmother. It had lavender-purple faux crystal beads. While praying she was overcome with emotion and started to cry. She put the rosary away and went to confession. Once adoration ended, she left the church and returned to a different building where they broke off into small groups to talk about the experience.

S opened up the little white bag containing the rosary and suddenly noticed that the beads were a bright baby blue. She believed that the rosary had changed color during Adoration, coinciding with her intense emotional experience. This belief was affirmed by the adults leading the retreat, who told her that blue is the Virgin Mary’s color, meaning that she must have performed the miracle. S told her story to the whole room (50+ people) and called her mom in tears to tell her about the miracle. This moment was the strongest she had ever believed in God, but it was probably the last moment she ever believed to that extent as well.


The next morning when her mom came to pick her, S pulled out the rosary to show her. Her heart sank as it was purple again. She snuck back into the youth center and realized the grave mistake: it was only the lighting of that room that had changed the color of the rosary. Immediately she felt embarrassed for having believed such a miracle could have occurred. S says that her belief in Catholicism pretty much declined from there, largely due to other factors but also the humiliation of such an underwhelming event.

Analysis:

S thought she had a personal experience of myth, or the occurrence of a miracle, which is central to Catholic mythology. Often, for people growing up in christian communities, they are instilled with expectations for God’s incessant greatness and love for all his creation. Catholicism especially holds the notion of every-day miracles at its core, preaching that the divine can send little miracles, or head-nods, to acknowledge his creation and the hope of their eventual salvation.

The Christian doctrine creates endless promises to its followers, giving them hope for when hope is absent. However, when such promises are not conceived in any way, people tend to drift away from God. It is an underwhelming and confounding experience, which in turn deters followers from Christian doctrine and introduces them into a realm of harsh reality.

S believed she had experienced a miracle, which was so central to her belief system at the time. However, once she realized her miracle was false, she not only snapped back to reality, but also realized the prospect that much more than just the color-changing rosary was an underwhelming lie. Although she mentioned that other factors played a role in her rift from the church, this instance is symbolic of what happens with many when religious beliefs get flipped on their head.

Irish Proverb: “May you be in heaven 15 minutes before the devil knows you’re dead”

Nationality: American
Age: 52
Occupation: Unemployed
Residence: Thousand Oaks, CA
Performance Date: 2/22/23
Primary Language: English

Text: “May you be in heaven 15 minutes before the devil knows you’re dead”

Background: M is an American of Irish ethnicity that, during her childhood, enjoyed the bountiful wisdom of her Irish grandmother. M was also raised in an Irish Catholic household.

Context:  M recalls this proverb being said by her grandmother when she would commit venial (small) sins. It means that you can commit these venial sins and enjoy your life to the fullest extent as long as you are cunning enough to slip past the devil on Judgement Day and make your way to heaven.

Analysis: Like many other Irish proverbs, this proverb takes on a more comedic perspective of the Catholic faith. Rather than taking Catholic doctrine seriously, it proposes an excuse for sinful behavior. Although based in and in reference to Catholic theology, the proverb advises sin if you are able to escape the ultimate punishment: hell. Such a perspective can be explained by a more modern and ethnic-approach to Catholicism. Since Irish Catholics have a long history of fighting for religious freedom against Protestant forces, present day Irish Catholics have implemented their religious history as part of their identity. Therefore, although many may no longer be truly devout in their faith, they still identify with Catholicism almost as an ethnicity of sorts.