Mary Is With Us: Our Lady of St. Maryam Dearit, Keren, Eritrea

Dur­ing this dif­fi­cult time of Coro­n­avirus, I will be shar­ing excerpts from the book, Mag­ni­fi­cat: Mama Mary’s Pil­grim Sites, a col­lec­tion of 24 tes­ti­monies by peo­ple whose lives were changed by Mama Mary.  I hope that these arti­cles remind us that Mary is with us dur­ing this dif­fi­cult time. May you find solace in these per­son­al tes­ti­mo­ni­als.  ~ Cecil­ia Manguer­ra Brainard, edi­tor of Mag­ni­fi­cat.

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St. Maryam Dear­it

ERITREA – Shrine of St. Maryam Dear­it, Keren

Eritrea’s Chris­t­ian pop­u­la­tion is com­posed main­ly of Ortho­dox and Catholics. Ital­ian influ­ence is evi­dent in the church­es of the lat­ter, espe­cial­ly at the Asmara Cathe­dral where a repli­ca of a mirac­u­lous paint­ing of Our Lady of the Rosary in Pom­peii con­tin­ues to attract vis­i­tors.

Moth­er Mary is deeply revered here and it is com­mon prac­tice to add “Mari­am” to Eritre­an sur­names. An exam­ple is Gebre­mari­am, which means “ser­vant of the Vir­gin Mary.”

Chris­tians and Mus­lims often make pil­grim­ages to the city of Keren, where a mirac­u­lous bronze stat­ue of our Lady is enshrined inside the trunk of a huge Baobab tree.

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WHEN THE BLACK AND RED SEAS MEET

Aimee Gaboya Orte­ga-Lucero

TRAVEL became an oppor­tu­ni­ty when I worked for the Unit­ed Nations and I did just that — reach­ing no less than the “ends of the earth.” This pre­req­ui­site, among oth­ers, moti­vat­ed me to join peace­keep­ing mis­sions when my desk job at its New York Head­quar­ters, as well as my per­son­al life, became stale and con­fin­ing.

My first mis­sion was Cam­bo­dia. Although it was a very sat­is­fy­ing work expe­ri­ence, my per­son­al focus then was on the mun­dane. It was only after I crossed the waters of the Black and Red Seas to assume my last assign­ment that I found inspi­ra­tion to chart anoth­er kind of sea change.

Peace­keep­ing mis­sions are not for every­one. We often served in dif­fi­cult and demand­ing sit­u­a­tions. Work­ing and liv­ing con­di­tions were some­times dan­ger­ous. But the pre­car­i­ous­ness of it all taught me valu­able life skills. And while the true impact of my expe­ri­ences may have tak­en some time to dawn, the sig­nif­i­cance is tran­scen­dent and the sign­posts are unique­ly my own.

My work brought me to places that awed me, like the House of the Vir­gin Mary in Eph­esus, Turkey; the shrine of our Lady in Med­ju­gor­je, Bosnia and Herce­gov­ina; and the Saint Maryam Dear­it Chapel in Keren, Eritrea.

I spent six years at the Unit­ed Nations Observ­er Mis­sion in Geor­gia (UNOMIG).  The mis­sion, which was sec­ond to my last assign­ment, was estab­lished to achieve polit­i­cal set­tle­ment between the Repub­lic of Geor­gia and Abk­hazia. These two amaz­ing regions are geo­graph­i­cal­ly linked to each oth­er by the moun­tains of the Cau­ca­sus and the Black Sea coast.

The inhab­i­tants of Abk­hazia, where I was based, were most­ly Chris­tians. Church build­ings abound­ed in the area but they were either East­ern Ortho­dox or Armen­ian Apos­tolic. One church was reput­ed­ly erect­ed over the tomb of St. John Chrysos­tom. And curios­i­ty embold­ened me twice to climb to a moun­tain cave where, accord­ing to leg­end, the saint lived in com­plete silence. Places of wor­ship may have filled the land­scape, but I missed the com­fort of Catholic rites. So for the dura­tion of my stay there, I was able to attend ser­vices only dur­ing home leave or when I vis­it­ed Tbil­isi, Geor­gia; the Russ­ian city of Sochi; or Turkey. To rem­e­dy my grow­ing guilt, I col­lect­ed paint­ings of church­es and Madon­nas.

There was an old stone church inside the guard­ed hotel com­pound where we worked and lived. My col­leagues and I cleaned it up, placed Moth­er Mary’s pic­tures there, offered flow­ers and lit can­dles. But I couldn’t pray! So I’d walk to the beach to watch the sun­set burst in pur­ples and pinks over the Black Sea. And I’d search for per­fect stones.

While on vaca­tion, I went to Izmir on Turkey’s west­ern coast to vis­it the house of the Vir­gin Mary in Eph­esus. She sup­pos­ed­ly spent her last days there, based on the tra­di­tion­al belief that Jesus entrust­ed her to Saint John’s care.

The mod­ern his­to­ry of Moth­er Mary’s House is unusu­al. It was “dis­cov­ered” in 1812 by an invalid Ger­man nun, Sis­ter Anne Cather­ine Emmerich, who nev­er trav­eled away from her home. The stig­mat­ic nun had a vision of the Vir­gin Mary trav­el­ing with Saint John from Jerusalem to Eph­esus. Her detailed descrip­tion of Moth­er Mary’s house was record­ed at her bed­side by a writer named Brentano.

Catholic offi­cials vis­it­ed Eph­esus and the house was turned into a shrine. Mus­lims, famil­iar with Mary’s name that is fre­quent­ly men­tioned in the Koran, also vis­it the site.

The spring that runs under the house is believed to have heal­ing prop­er­ties, and many mir­a­cles have been report­ed.  I filled to the brim a store-bought bot­tle pre-labeled “Eau de Merye­m­ana Eph­ese” and pinned my peti­tions on a wall. And though I was awed by the spir­i­tu­al sig­nif­i­cance of the shrine, the increas­ing growth of “spir­i­tu­al tourism” in the area was very dis­tract­ing.  Revved up by my tour guide’s well-rehearsed enthu­si­asm, I was only too eager to see the car­pet fac­to­ries, ancient ruins, and most espe­cial­ly, to taste the local cui­sine. Lit­tle did I know then the dif­fer­ence between a glo­ri­fied vaca­tion and a real pil­grim­age.

When my UNOMIG assign­ment end­ed, my boss invit­ed me to join his new team at the Unit­ed Nations Mis­sion in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE). The mis­sion was estab­lished to mon­i­tor a cease­fire in the bor­der war between Ethiopia and Eritrea. I was excit­ed to see Africa but there were prob­lems with my offi­cial release.

My return air tick­ets to New York were already issued. I didn’t want to go back to a desk job and in my rest­less­ness, Med­ju­gor­je came to mind. So I searched the Inter­net and was imme­di­ate­ly direct­ed to a site called the Med­ju­gor­je Web Pil­grim­ages. Coin­ci­den­tal­ly, a group tour from the Unit­ed States was sched­uled that very week and I was able to join by land, if only for three days. So instead of going straight home to New York via Istan­bul, I left Abk­hazia days ear­ly to make a side trip to Sara­je­vo, Bosnia and Herze­gov­ina. A dri­ver named Jure picked me up from my hotel and I rode his old Mer­cedes taxi all the way to Med­ju­gor­je. The trip along the Adri­at­ic Coast took less than three hours, and this includ­ed a short stop so my dri­ver could buy fresh fish.

A pri­vate room with bath was reserved for me in Mir­jana Brecic’s home in Pod­br­do. She is the old­est sis­ter of Vic­ka, one of the vision­ar­ies. But while wait­ing for my group to arrive by motor coach from Split, Croa­t­ia, I hur­ried­ly took a day trip in the same Mer­cedes taxi to Dubrovnik.

The house where I stayed was very close to the appari­tion hill. With a bor­rowed wood­en cane, I strug­gled with the rocks and stones that lined the path to the sacred spot. But upon reach­ing it, I under­stood why they say heav­en touch­es the earth in Med­ju­gor­je.

It was All Souls Week. A novice in the devo­tion­al prac­tices of the shrine, I walked with more knowl­edge­able pil­grims to the ceme­tery at night­fall. Encir­cling the tombs, we said spe­cial prayers by can­dle­light, hop­ing to release some lost souls to heav­en. Our “qui­et time” broke only after some­one won­dered loud­ly if our Lady was pass­ing by.

My reli­gious arti­cles kept on accu­mu­lat­ing and I would bring them twice dai­ly to the parish church of Saint James for bless­ings: Once in the morn­ing dur­ing the Eng­lish mass, and then again dur­ing the evening ser­vices so the Vir­gin Mary could bless them too. I dabbed my rosaries with the water drip­ping inex­plic­a­bly from a stat­ue of Jesus.

Although I missed much of the tour’s full itin­er­ary, my vis­it to the Cena­co­lo made up for the loss. And it was there where I bought my most pre­cious sou­venirs: two small pic­ture frames of the Vir­gin Mary hand­craft­ed by its reha­bil­i­tat­ing mem­bers.

The vision­ar­ies said that nobody goes to Med­ju­gor­je by acci­dent and that we are called indi­vid­u­al­ly by our Lady. I also learned that pil­grims go on pil­grim­age not nec­es­sar­i­ly to see some­thing, but to receive some­thing, such as renewed spir­it, greater devo­tion, or a clos­er rela­tion­ship with God. But I may have triv­i­al­ized the expe­ri­ence by behav­ing like a tourist. My sight­see­ing trip to Dubrovnik, as well as my fre­quent vis­its to the vil­lage shops, proved that I was not able to sep­a­rate myself com­plete­ly from the world.

And yet, my UNMEE assign­ment became offi­cial after two months of prayer­ful wait­ing and I was post­ed to Asmara, the Eritre­an cap­i­tal.

Eritrea has an exten­sive coast­line on the Red Sea. Mus­soli­ni had want­ed to estab­lish it as a strong indus­tri­al base for Ital­ian colonies in the Horn of Africa. The Asmara Catholic Cathe­dral is con­sid­ered one of the major works of art in the con­ti­nent. The Cathe­dral has a beau­ti­ful paint­ing on its main altar, a repli­ca of a mirac­u­lous image enshrined at the Church of Our Lady of the Rosary in Pom­peii, Italy. The Baby Jesus is sit­ting on Moth­er Mary’s lap and Moth­er and Son are hand­ing out rosaries to Saint Dominic and Saint Cather­ine of Siena.

The avail­abil­i­ty of church ser­vices in Eritrea solid­i­fied some­thing that was grow­ing with­in me. And as fate would have it, a col­league from Cam­bo­dia days was also assigned to the Mis­sion. Her piety was con­ta­gious. Togeth­er, we would bor­row the UN land cruis­er to catch the Ital­ian evening mass, stay late for prayers, and still reach home before cur­few. Her name, coin­ci­den­tal­ly, was Maria from Dam­as­cus, Syr­ia.

Our prayer group was very active and while our excur­sions to the Red Sea made me won­der each time how it part­ed dur­ing bib­li­cal times, Divine Prov­i­dence may have led us to Keren, some 91 kilo­me­ters north-west of Asmara. The city is an impor­tant com­mer­cial cen­tre. It was also the scene of many bat­tles, includ­ing World War II, and the Eritre­an War of Inde­pen­dence.

In 1869, a group of French nuns opened an orphan­age in the Keren area and cul­ti­vat­ed orchards. The Lazarists gave them a bronze stat­ue of the Vir­gin Mary and they carved a shrine inside the trunk of a huge Baobab tree to house her. The shrine is called St. Maryam (Mari­am) Dear­it. The tree is about 75 feet high.

One leg­end tells that a group of Ital­ian sol­diers saw a beau­ti­ful lady beck­on­ing them to hide inside the shrine to avoid attack from British planes dur­ing World War II.  A bomb struck the tree and land­ed in the sol­diers’ midst. But it didn’t explode and the sol­diers sur­vived. The hole can still be seen on the walls of the tree. Every May 29th, peo­ple of all faiths flock to Keren to com­mem­o­rate the mir­a­cle. A pro­ces­sion is held and the stat­ue of the Vir­gin Mary is car­ried around the Baobab tree, fol­lowed by singing and danc­ing.

We removed our shoes before enter­ing the Baobab. This time, I was able to place things in their prop­er per­spec­tive, open­ing myself to Moth­er Mary’s pres­ence in the sim­ple shrine. The stat­ue is believed to have heal­ing pow­ers. Pic­tures of loved ones hung on the walls. And local women brewed cof­fee in the shade of the tree, con­fi­dent they would be blessed with chil­dren if a pass­ing trav­el­er accepts a cup.

I left Asmara after three years, entrust­ing to a local staff one of my two pic­tures of our Lady of Med­ju­gor­je.

A pil­grim has been described as half a tourist if the tourist is half a pil­grim. While the descrip­tion fits, break­ing the cycle should come easy now that I know what’s more impor­tant: that the suc­cess of a pil­grim­age can­not be mea­sured by the num­ber of sacred sites vis­it­ed or by the quan­ti­ty of sou­venirs bought.  What tru­ly mat­ters is the person’s inten­tion, as well as his/her trans­for­ma­tion.

Peace­keep­ing has been more than a ful­fill­ing work expe­ri­ence. By trav­el­ing the net­work of routes to help mis­sions car­ry out its man­dates to help coun­tries rebuild them­selves, I found my own mis­sion in the process.  My biggest ques­tion now is how to build a faith-cen­tered life.

I pray for depth and wis­dom, just like the Black Sea and its pos­i­tive water bal­ance. So one day, I’d be able to say that I’ve been true to my own salt — just like the high­ly saline waters of the Red Sea.

BIO of author: 

AIMEE GABOYA ORTEGA LUCERO became a wife and moth­er right after grad­u­a­tion from St. Theresa’s Col­lege, Mani­la. She had com­plet­ed kinder­garten and high school in St. Theresa’s Col­lege, Cebu, where she was born. When her chil­dren (Michael and Tah­nee) were pre-teens, she went to New York and worked at the Unit­ed Nations. Her fam­i­ly fol­lowed her to New York. She retired after twen­ty-five years of ser­vice. She cur­rent­ly lives in New York and is busy as a wife, moth­er but now, a grand­moth­er.

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