This morning I decided to spend some time in quiet prayer at Mission Basilica San Juan Capistrano, in Southern California. It’s located just behind Mission San Juan Capistrano, the 7th of the 21 California missions founded by Father Serra, now St. Serra.
My intention was to ask for inspiration and guidance for this effort of mine to continue to learn more about the Blessed Virgin Mary.
At about 11 a.m. I entered this magnificent basilica and found myself to be the only one here. It struck me that as I drove here many people were out and about on this beautiful Indian summer day.
The local outdoor barbecue spot directly across from the mission was full of people enjoying an early lunch. (The line gets long about noon.) Yet, no one was inside this church to be nearer to Our Lady.
As you can see from the retablo in the video below (the beautiful gilded structure behind the altar), the Blessed Mother is front and center in this Catholic basilica. The shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe is likely the most-often visited shrine in the basilica, given the Hispanic community in the area, and I usually sit right next to it when I visit.
Today I was envious of St. Juan Diego, to whom Our Lady appeared in 1531 (link to his story here).
About five minutes into my quiet prayer with my eyes closed, I noticed the sweet smell of roses. This happened once before as I sat in the same place. It was a fleeting wafting of the most beautiful scent of roses. There were 11 bouquets in the shrine, brought by prayerful visitors, most small and perhaps cut from a home garden. There were only two vases with roses and I was seated about 15 feet away. Despite the mask I was wearing due to COVID, which covered my nose and mouth, I could smell the distinct smell of roses. The fragrance faded after a very short while.
I waited for the air conditioner to go on and off to see if that was what prompted the fragrance to permeate the area where I was sitting, but the fragrance did not return. I slipped behind the kneelers in front of the shrine to get closer to the flower vases and found that most had no fragrance at all. The roses smelled lovely up close, but not so much that I would have been able to smell from as far away as I was sitting.
As I wrote this blog on my iPad while seated in a pew, eventually several people people did enter the basilica to stop by the shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe to light a candle and pray. One young mother brought her three children. Her oldest, a girl about 13 years old, placed a lovely bouquet near St. Juan Diego. She and her brothers knelt and said a brief prayer. I wondered what they were asking of Our Lady.
Though so unworthy, I often wish the Virgin Mary would show herself to me like she did to St. Juan Diego nearly 500 years ago. But maybe this is the plan … to keep me searching and writing about the journey to learn more about Mary, our Mother.
Maybe the scent of roses during my visit was to let me know she was here with me. With us.
I left the basilica feeling very uplifted.
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