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<p>The Virgin Mary reportedly began to appear at Greensides Farm, just outside the village of Marmora, Ontario, Canada, in 1992. She continues to appear to three central visionaries at the pilgrimage shrine. Catholic pilgrims come from around the world to pray, many of them with the hope of seeing Mary or experiencing a miracle. Countless pilgrims claim to have received spiritual, emotional, or physical healing through their miraculous experiences, events which they attribute to the power of the Holy Spirit. I argue that contestation is present at the Marmora pilgrimage shrine and occurs over symbols embedded in the activities of individuals and different Catholic groups. Communitas also exists at Marmora through the shrine's liminality, but it is normative communitas, and not spontaneous communitas, because the pilgrimage is structured by outside social, political, and religious influences. Further to this point, most pilgrims retain their status in everyday life at the shrine, and some pilgrims (namely the visionaries) obtain a heightened status that transfers into their mundane lives. My research indicates that contestation and communitas among both pilgrims and Catholic groups affect each individual's interpretation of their pilgrimage experience at Marmora, just as individuals' interpretations of their own background and knowledge inform their experiences of contestation and communitas. An analysis of pilgrims' miracle and healing narratives demonstrates that it is important to explore individuals' interpretations of their pilgrimage experience, as the journey can have tangible effects on a pilgrim's mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical well-being </p> / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

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