When we awoke on December 9th, we knew it would be a full day, for we would be attending our diocese’s annual celebration of the feast of the Immaculate Conception at the shrine to Our Lady of Lourdes in Agbenoxoe.

This year the celebration would be a special one. Agbenoxoe was celebrating a hundred years of the Catholic Faith as well as fifty years since the opening of the grotto. But we had no idea what else awaited us.

That morning we joined the crowds heading towards the shrine for the closing Mass. Many priests, religious and faithful were present, over two thousand probably. Mass began beautifully but simply with many people still arriving, including the local chief of the area.

The children saw it first. They began shouting and pointing up to the sky. Some adults also began gesticulating. Gradually the excitement passed through the crowd.

Looking up at first, all you could see was the bright sun. Then colors began to shine from it—blues, oranges, and reds—filling the sky and playing on the people.

The sun began to be eclipsed by a darker circle. It changed shape and began to dance, to spin, to move up and down and back and forth. It is impossible to describe it.

People shouted and raised their hands in praise and worship. Many of them wept.

The lights continued to change and shine around us; people were bathed by them. The whole area took on a feel of otherworldliness, a feel which was peaceful, joyful, awe-inspiring.

Then a bright golden light filled the area and shone on the huge statue of Our Lady on the top of a hill. All was bathed in this light, and as people began rushing to the statue, those within the light took on the golden glow. The Sisters’ white habits looked yellow.

The golden light stayed that way for a few minutes and then it began to fade becoming a spotlight on the statue of Our Lady.

Finally, the changing colors stopped dancing across the sky, and the sky returned to normal. As unexpectedly as it had begun, it ended.

Almost immediately, the priests called people back to continue with the liturgy. Everyone calmly and peacefully returned to their places.

"Mary has revealed herself to us," Bishop Lodonu said. "Mary has shown herself to us, and we say welcome to her."

The liturgy continued. When it was time for the homily, the bishop said, "I won’t give a long homily. Mary has taken up my time. What more needs to be said?!"

But he did go on to talk very simply and beautifully about Our Lady, about some of her attributes and about the need for us to give ourselves to her.

The liturgy proceeded as if nothing unusual had happened.

Time came for the consecration. A greater miracle was about to take place, yet Christ would now come to us in a far more ordinary manner than what we had experienced earlier.

God came to us hidden from our eyes. Our eyes that had just seen the sun dance now beheld the creator of that sun under the form of the most elemental substance.

I marveled as I held him in my hands. He whom the universe could not contain was contained within a tiny host. The all-powerful, still and helpless, was on the palm of my hand.

The Mass ended. There was to have been another part to the celebration, but it was cancelled. No one could handle anything more.

All were abuzz with, "Sister, did you see it?" "Wasn’t that something?" "Did you see the reds in the sky?"

We had just seen a miracle of the sun, one probably similar in some way to the one that had occurred at Fatima. What do you do after a divine intervention?

What did Mary do after the Word Incarnate, the only begotten Son of the Father, lay in her arms? Her God! After rapt moments of adoration, awe, incredulity, what happened next?

Sooner or later the moment must have been pierced by a human cry, the ordinary, everyday, utterly human cry of a hungry baby. Mary must have responded as all mothers do.

The ordinary had broken in again, swept over the sublime, folded away divinity.

There the four of us MH staff stood, feeling hot, thirsty, tired and hungry. It was over, though no one who was there that day will ever forget it. We are all left pondering the mystery of a visitation.

But we were soon back in our Nazareth life again, sweeping the floors, feeding the goat, greeting visitors, bringing in the harvest. Friends came and went, we took part in various activities, and we baked cookies for Christmas. Life continued on.

Other memories crowded in upon that day. The parish of Shia celebrated fifty years of the faith in grand style. We celebrated the feast of St. Nicholas with a friend from Holland. We said good-bye to our parish assistant and welcomed a new one.

We said good-bye to newly married friends who went to live in the States. We rejoiced with other friends at the ordination to the diaconate of their son for a diocese in Saskatchewan, Canada. Bishop Lodonu turned 70. Life went on.

Advent slipped away in the flurry of Christmas preparations. Yet there was planted in each of us the remembrance of that day and the hope of more graces to come.

We took Our Lady as our example. We held the supernatural quietly in our hearts. We enfolded it in the duty of the moment, in the manger of our ordinary life, in the hiddenness of Nazareth, in the whiteness of a consecrated Host, and we waited for corruptibility to take on glory once more.

May the Eternal Sun of Righteousness dance in all our hearts and shine through in the ordinary days of our lives.