“They don’t want to listen, but they do want a presence.” “Words are useless when people are down on the ground,” he says in the film.

On the contrary, this was exactly the kind of revelation the Irish people needed, says Tom Neary of the Knock Shrine Society. Moreover, the apparition’s lack of words or extraordinary miracles of nature (as seen at Fátima or Lourdes) did not prevent the viewers from receiving a heavenly message. Despite the pouring rain, they began reciting the rosary then and there. Joseph fixed in positions of prayer, they interpreted it as a reminder of the consolation that prayer provides. However, the film pays much less attention to these events than it does to the spiritual impact of the apparition.Īccording to the 15 eyewitness testimonies, when the viewers saw the Blessed Virgin and St. The following year, petitions to the government to aid the starving population were finally answered, and after three successive potato crop failures, 1880 yielded a good crop at last. On one level, the apparition ushered in some long-awaited practical relief to the country’s crises. Pope Francis prays as he visits the Chapel of the Apparitions at the Knock Shrine in Knock, Ireland, in 2018.

“And indeed, that is what she did when she came.” “The novena prayer to Our Lady of Knock … reads, ‘You gave hope to your people in a time of distress, and comforted them in sorrow,’ ” says Noirin Byrne of the Knock Museum in the film. The challenges of that time might sound somewhat familiar to audiences today: widespread illness, financial hardship, fear, anxiety, and political tension.Īmid all of this, the apparition seemed to offer consolation tailor-made for the devout yet downtrodden people of Ireland.

To set the stage, interviewees describe the political and social climate of Ireland in the years leading up to 1879. That message is the power of spiritual healing. Through interviews with historians, clergy, and pilgrims, in addition to dramatic interpretations, “Hope” offers 21st-century audiences not just a moving story of the past but an inspiring message that can comfort a world in pain today. John, and a lamb upon an altar, all bathed in heavenly light. Above the village churchyard appeared four majestic figures: the Virgin Mary, St. 21, 1879, when a group of villagers from Knock beheld a sight they would never forget. The story begins on the rainy evening of Aug. Winner of the Catholic Press Association’s 2020 Gabriel Award, this 87-minute film tells the story of how a small village in western Ireland became a major shrine that today draws thousands of pilgrims from around the world. The story of that miracle is told in a modern light in “Hope: Our Lady of Knock,” a new documentary from the Global Catholic media network EWTN. It was in that year and in that country, however, that Catholics believe something miraculous happened. They were, one could argue, sufferings comparable to what the world is experiencing today due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. A majority of the population suffered from yet another crippling potato famine, the government struggled to procure humanitarian aid, and a history of religious persecution tested the faith of many in the traditionally Catholic country.

The situation of Ireland in 1879 was not a pretty one.

Our lady of knock