More on Emma

Emma was a masterpiece of a novel written by Jane Austen and published in 1816. Its lead character was rich, beautiful, clever, but meddlesome (she was so much into matchmaking).

Today, the feast of the Mother of Perpetual Help, NBN-4 will be showing at 7 p.m. a documentary that also carries the title Emma. This Emma is so unlike the English socialite in the novel. Emma de Guzman is a poor widow with three children from Cabanatuan in Nueva Ecija and had to work initially as a domestic helper in Singapore in the early ‘80s and later in Canada as a nanny (she didn’t even know what a nanny was before she got the job).

She is also a visionary and claims to have seen the Blessed Mother on several occasions.

This is not the first time that we’ve heard of Marian apparitions in the Philippines. In 1948, all roads led to Lipa City when the young postulant Teresita Castillo reportedly saw visions of Our Blessed Mother under the title of Our Lady of the Mediatrix of All Grace. After years of grueling investigation — with Teresita mercilessly grilled repeatedly — the Vatican dismissed the case as a hoax. Poor Teresita eventually left the nunnery and led a simple life in Paranaque — unmarried.

Today, an image of the Our Lady of Mediatrix of All Grace is venerated in one of the altars at the Carmelite Convent in Lipa. There is a smaller replica installed at the entrance of Sanctuario de San Jose in Greenhills and I made a wish before Mama Mary’s image last month and it was granted. That further strengthened my Marian faith.

In the Philippines, Marian devotion is so strong that a lot of Filipinos drive to Pangasinan to pray to Our Lady of Manaoag. Bicolanos in Metro Manila return to Bicol — in Naga City — during the feast day of Our Lady of Peñafrancia and even for the fiesta of Our Lady of Salvation in the Blessed Mother’s shrine in Tiwi in Albay.

Unfortunately, there are also a lot of fake visionaries (and especially faith healers) in this country. Remember Judiel Nieva who claimed to have visions of the Blessed Mother in Agoo in the early ‘90s?

In the late ‘60s, there was also a reported Marian apparition in Mindoro — in a town called Cabra. Even Imelda Marcos, then a relatively new First Lady, made a side trip there out of curiosity. The report said that the Virgin Mary appeared to a group of children there, but news about this incident eventually vanished and it wasn’t until about a decade or so later when a weekly magazine did a follow-up story on this supposed apparition. Some of the children had married then, but they still insisted that they saw the Blessed Mother as they claimed earlier.

June Keithley, who did the beautiful book and documentary on Teresita Castillo and the events at Lipa believes that the reported visions at Cabra were authentic. But then, why would the Blessed Mother want to have a title Our Lady of Cabra, when cabra means goat in Spanish?

By the way, it is also June’s Keithley Report that put together the documentary on Emma de Guzman, whose first heavenly vision — so she believes in her heart — was Jesus Christ. Emma said that the vision happened while she was at the Fatima Shrine during a trip to New York with her employer. When she returned to her home base in Canada, she says that the Blessed Mother started appearing to her repeatedly.

Emma claims that she has become friends with some of the saints in heaven who speak to her. One is St. Bernadette, the visionary at Lourdes. Emma will never forget what St. Bernadette told her: “What happened to me will also happen to you.”

Those who saw the Hollywood movie Song of Bernadette, of course, are familiar with St. Bernadette, who was persecuted at first and later died after a long illness that kept her constantly in pain.

Emma had also spoken to St. Teresa of Avila and this is how she describes the Spanish saint: “She looks like a model — very confident. You know how it is when a person is rich and intelligent.”

Sister Faustina of the Divine Mercy later also taught her the Divine Mercy prayer, which is now more popularly known as the 3 O’clock Habit.

St. John the Evangelist she describes as a beautiful man with almost feminine features. I remember a Good Friday procession in my old Della Strada parish in La Vista when I saw an image that wasn’t covered in a black veil like Sts. Magdalene, Veronica and Salome and asked a neighbor, Mrs. Dolly Fenix, why so. Mrs. Fenix said, “because he is male — he is St. John the Evangelist.” He does have soft features in most of his art interpretations.

St. John the Evangelist, incidentally, gave Emma messages in ancient Greek, which was quite popular during the time of Jesus Christ. Yes, Emma can write in ancient Greek, which puzzles scholars no end because there is no school today where you can train for that.

There are other baffling scenes in this documentary and one took place in the Philippines — in Batulao where Emma, surrounded by the followers of Pieta (an international prayer group she has organized) saw angels and the Blessed Mother again. After that came a shower of gold dust and those who were present when the event took place talk about that experience in the docu. They all swear that what took place there — in what is now called the Mountain of Salvation — was real.

I am usually skeptical about these so-called miraculous events — and heaven forgive me if I sound blasphemous. Watching the docu Emma can actually be engrossing, but I am not a hundred per cent convinced that everything is authentic (again, that is the skeptic in me). Maybe because Emma de Guzman doesn’t look like Jennifer Jones in Song of Bernadette?

But this much I can say: This documentary further strengthened my faith in the Lord and reminded me to fulfill more of my obligations to the Catholic religion.