A Galway Epiphany

The

 eighth

  of

   December.

It was a cold bright evening.

The Irish Famine Memorial to the children who died on the famine boats stood starkly against the backdrop of the ocean.

Two young people approached, aged sixteen and nine.

They’d been living, or rather barely existing, in the refugee center hastily erected on the outskirts of the Claddagh.

They’d heard bits and scraps of the young girl Celia Griffin, who died of starvation during the Irish famine.

They could understand the hunger and had seen enough of death in their travails.

The girl, a serious child, had liberated a small candle from the center’s supplies and now they knelt and lit the candle for the famine child.

She whispered to the boy,

“Here’s a trick I learned in Guatemala.”

She drew a small metal object from beneath her thin shirt, said,

“El espejismo azul” (in Guatemala it was known as the blue manifestation/illusion).

As they looked up, an intense blue light shimmered above the monument, seemed to expand with lightning white streaks interwoven.

A passing American woman in her late fifties saw the moment, gasped, grabbed her iPhone, began to film.

She clearly heard the children exclaim,

“La Madonna.”

The woman, though not herself Catholic, involuntarily muttered,

“Holy Mother of God!”

The clip was posted to YouTube and within twenty-four hours had gone viral.

The eighth of December, coincidentally, is the feast day of the Immaculate Conception and is fondly referred to as “Our Lady’s birthday.”