The glitzy lobby of the Royalton is an odd place to be talking
about apparitions of the Virgin Mary, but there I am, sitting across a table
from Beverly Donofrio, as we discuss her journey to several Marian shrines in
the United States and in Medjugorje, the Bosnian city where Mary has been
appearing regularly for well over a decade. That journey, and the spiritual
transformation that accompanied it, is the foundation of her memoir,
Looking For Mary. While it retains the emotional candor of her first
book, Riding in Cars with Boys, this story also depicts miraculous events,
both great and small, that many readers might find difficult to accept. "There
are synchronicities and coincidences in this story," Donofrio admits, "and you
can think of them as just coincidences, or you can put larger meaning to them.
It's just so much more fun if you put larger meaning to them, if you ask
yourself, 'What does this coincidence mean?'" She's clearly not worried about
what other people will think of her exeperiences, and more than eager to
share them in conversation as well as in print.
RH: How did you come to develop an interest in the Virgin
Mary?
BD: It wasn't conscious at all. It was an intuitive attraction to
her image, when I saw that first Mary in a framed postcard at a yard
sale and just had to have it, and every beautfiul Mary I saw after
that. I didn't think anything about it except that I loved the image. I
loved that it was kitsch, that people would get upset. I liked the way
I felt with her pictures around and that was that.
Then I was about to move from Long Island to Los Angeles, I came
up with the idea of visiting Marian adoration sites and doing a
documentary for NPR. My friend David Isay had a grant to do a radio
documentary and had invited me to come up with ideas. So I emailed
him and asked if he thought it was a good idea. "Are you kidding?"
he asked. "Let's do it." Then he asked me to start thinking about
what Mary meant to me, why I wanted to go looking for her, to write
it all down and send it to him.
In retrospect, I think that idea was partly a way for me to rationalize
what I really wanted to do, because I felt threatened at that time by
wanting to believe in the Virgin Mary, you know? It'd be okay to do
a story. And when I went to the shrines, and they gave me
rosary beads and invited me to pray the rosary, it was okay for me
to pray for the story.
A year later, I was writing the proposal for this book, and I said I'd
go to Medjugorje, the mother of all contemporary adoration sites, for
the story. So I found out about the various pilgrimages available, and
there was one that would enable me to fly to New York for my
parent's fiftieth wedding anniversary, then from there to Bosnia for a
six-day silent fasting pilgrimage. I really didn't want to go on that
one, but it was the only one available, so I signed up for it, made a
deposit, and sent out the proposal. Three weeks later, there was no
response from any publishers. I had to make a decision because the
deadline for the pilgrimage was approaching, and I decided I'd go
even if I didn't have the book deal. That's when I realized it was
about me, not the story. (pause) And then the next day, we
had a bidding war for the book.
RH: Part of what makes the book so intriguing is the
internal conflicts that trip to Medjugorje raises for you,
because you're not the sort of fervent Catholic ordinarily
found on religious pilgrimages. And you didn't agree with
them on a lot of issues.
BD: It was great for me. I had so designed my life to be
around people who were just like me, and I think that's a big
mistake. I think there's a lot to learn from people who are radically
different from you; I learned a lot from those people. And I had a lot
of good stories around the dinner table, too, for a good year after the
pilgrimage. (laughs)
I cannot abide that there are no women priests. It just drives me
crazy. I can understand why there haven't been, because it's been a
sexist world, but we know better now. And the Gospels may have
been written by men, but women were at the cross when Christ died,
women were at the tomb. Mary was with the apostles at Pentecost...
And things like masturbation is a sin, birth control is a sin? Come on,
this is pretty obvious stuff. I don't know anybody who agrees with
that, and suddenly I was surrounded by 49 people who do.
RH: I suspect it'll be a challenge for you to convince less
religiously inclined readers of Looking for Mary
about your faith in the Blessed Virgin.
BD: I do feel that I was called. I don't feel like I have a choice.
I know the difference it has made in my life. It's like night and day,
the way I felt before and the way I feel now, and that's due to the
Virgin Mary. And I was given the gift of the ability to write, so I'm
using it. I don't know that my route of going to apparition sites is the
route one should take to the Virgin Mary, but it was my route.
I don't know, by the way, that it's so important that people take the
Virgin Mary seriously. I think it's important that people who feel
something for her can feel invited to feel more. I think belief in any
religion, in any god-figure or philosopher, is just as valid as Mary.
But she's a valid path to take, if it works for you. Because of my own
experience, I feel that there's a lot more people who could have a
similar experience if they opened themselves to it.
RH: There's a scene early on in the book where one of
your neighbors comes to your house, which by now is filled
with Marian images, and later comments on your "Mary
cathexis..."
BD: The restorative fantasy, right. (laughs)
RH: Right. It is one potential skeptical reaction to
your claims that Mary intervened in your life.
BD: I don't think that excludes what happened, though. I
probably do have a restorative fantasy. But I don't care what
brought me here, I just care about where I got. And where that is is
that I believe in God now. It's the first baby step on a spiritual path.
I don't know where it will lead, but I'm committed. It's not like
spirituality was completely absent from my life before, but now it's
at the forefront. It's my purpose.
RH: Your involvement with Mary forced you to look at
your own efforts as a mother, and you write about your
recognition of what had happened between you and your
son over the years, and your attempts to reconcile with
him.
BD: At the same time that I was getting involved with the
Virgin Mary, my relationship with my son began to completely
disintegrate. I wonder if I had an inkling that this would happen, and
that I would need God to deal with such a painful situation. I was in
such denial about the hurt I'd caused my son, and to begin to face up
to the damage I'd caused him... It was incredibly painful. The only
comfort I had was believing that Mary was going to help us, that if I
prayed and asked her, she would help. And she did.
And now that the book's out...he called me up in the middle of the
night recently and said, "I love you. I forgive you. I accept you the
way you are. I know that you did the best you could and I accept
that. I want a relationship with you." I'm not convinced that would
have happened had I not been praying to Mary. So now he's got a
rosary, he's got pictures of Mary on the refrigerator...
RH: Twenty years ago, if somebody had told you you'd
have written a book about the Virgin Mary...
BD:...I would have killed myself before I became the person I
am now. I couldn't have even imagined a way that could happen and
be any good. But here I am and it's wonderful.
I go to Mass every Sunday now. I say the rosary every day, and I do prayer
meditation. On this tour, I'm trying to go to church every day, and Mass if I
can, because it helps me to chill out. Before I started the tour, I went to
confession for the first time in two years, to the abbot at the Benedictine
monastery near my home in Mexico. I was so afraid I was going to
misrepresent myself. That if I faced somebody cynical, I'd short change myself
to make a better impression on him, or I'd short change the experience for a
laugh. And he said, "Just pray. God knows exactly the way you are. He knows
your faults. Just ask Him to use you as you are."
