LESSER KNOWN MIRACLES PART ONE - THE RAWHITI LETTERBOX MADONNA

Miracles have been the feature topic in the most popular religious blog in this community recently. See:

HERE

HERE and

HERE

Now while miracles have been reported before in New Zealand like the fact that Chris Luxon became prime minister and Robert still believes in mythical deities, most don't get reported or are dismissed as the ravings of loonies.

There were a couple though that got attention back in the 1990s - one in 1993 in Auckland and the other in 1995 near Taumarunui.*

The 1993 apparition happened during the visit to New Zealand of the Medjugorje seer Ivan Dragicevic.
The New Zealandia reported that Dragicevic had a vision of Mary in St Patrick’s Cathedral, before Mass. While this took place, hundreds of people reportedly said they saw the sun (with the shape of a host, Our Lady, the crucifix or a dove) pulsating and spinning, and changing colour. Some people present reportedly said that some or all of the silver parts of their rosary beads had turned to gold. Anecdotal evidence saw a run on rosary bead purchases at the church store and corresponding overwhelming of jewellery and gold bullion trading stores.

The other New Zealand apparition is claimed to have happened at Manu Ariki Marae near Taumarunui in 1995 where the vision of a lady in white happened for nearly three hours at the marae, before slowly fading away.
The community there at the time reportedly had beliefs loosely based on Christianity, but with an emphasis on the female side of God. Catholic Church investigators discovered the remnants of mushroom inspired dishes and a disturbing number of photographs of statues of the virgin Mary taken from low angles. The investigation is on-going.

What this post is about is the unreported Rawhiti Letterbox Madonna, an event that took place in December 1964.

Three children who were dodging school to raid letterboxes, looking for Christmas cards and gifts that often contained money, had a scare when one of the boxes 'spoke' to them. They were discovered cowering and babbling by local constable Bob (Rangi) Eechwai and told him that a letterbox accosted them as they were riding past on their bikes. A few judicious albeit not judicial cuffs around their ears established the fact that they had been illegally checking out letterboxes and the one in particular, the Virgin Mary one, when they opened it screamed out "Shut the fucking door, you're letting a draft in!"

While Constable Bob wasn't exactly a religious guy, he still liked to keep his options open "just in case" he said and marched the kids along to see his second cousin Father Uptharode. His cuzzy was intrigued by the children's story but appalled at what they reported 'Mary' as saying. He coached them into reporting Mary's exclamation as something a little more seemly, or as seemly as the whole Maryan thing could be. He told them to quote Mary as saying:

 “The Holy Spirit came upon me, and the power of the Most High overshadowed me." 

"Eeew!" said the kids and each received a cuff around the ears.

The Catholic Bishop of the Northland diocese wasn't convinced by the story however and, after an investigation showed that an old atheist who was sick of having his mail stolen had rigged up a tape recorder in his mailbox to abuse anyone except the postman, closed the case.

Father Uptharode was relocated to a leper colony in the Solomon Islands and the little episode was buried in the church archives along with reports of kiddie fiddling, selling of communion hosts and misappropriation of the Sunday collections.

I guess we're lucky that we live in New Zealand where most people are rational.

* Richard was not living in Taumarunui at the time having left there in the mid 1970s. He did have visions but these were put down to overindulgence in alcohol.