My (unexpected) Journey to the Heart of Mary, Mother of Christ Jesus

This is the first article in series of an unintentional eight-year pilgrimage I took that led to my baptism in the Jordan River

By Robert Hudson Westover

Hundreds, no thousands of little white pieces of paper seemed to magically cling to the stones of the long wall with the occasional note falling off in the light breeze among the tall trees on this mountainside property.

With a modest stone built, two-room house and its very own artesian well providing water up a steep mountain (which seemed nearly impossible) this wasn’t any other property either in its location, on Mt. Koressos above the ruins of Ephesus, Turkey, or its purported former owner, Mary, the mother of Christ Jesus.

That’s right. The Virgin Mother, or as Catholic’s refer to her, Mary the Mother of God lived here.

And we, a gathering of folks from a cruise of Greece and Turkey, were unintentional guests. In fact, when exiting our cruise ship and boarding the bus as the sun rose over the small port town of Kusadasi, we thought we were going to see the ancient "ghost town" of Ephesus, once the third largest city in the Roman Empire. But our tour guide suggested we first visit the site of “Mother Mary” as the gates to enter the ruins of Ephesus had still not opened.

At the time I was not Catholic--the faith of my husband, Tom. However, Tom had no idea that this holy site even existed and was as surprised as me and our newest traveling friends, Randy and Charlotte, when told of the surprise stop.

As we entered the front approach to the house our tour guide pointed out the “miracle well” where Mary would have drawn water and said that the well "proved to be a powerful piece of evidence" that the property was indeed the site of Mary’s last earthly home. The reason being a nun in the late 19^th century. This nun had had a vision that this precise location in the mountains surrounding Ephesus was were Mary had been brought to live when John, the only disciple not to disavow Jesus during his trial and crucifixion, took Mary to protect her.

An ancient icon of Mary the Mother of Jesus. 
The blue cross on the left was purchased at
the House of the Virgin Mary, Turkey.
(Photo credit: Robert Westover

The Vatican Curia staffers are renowned for not jumping to conclusions on any subject, so it was decades before the site was investigated. The big hesitancy being: How could Mary live on a mountainside with no running water? 

Upon investigating, not only was an artesian well discovered, but so were the foundations of a two-room house.

I come from a family with a strong interest in history either for amateur or professional purposes. In both cases one learns to be skeptical of any claim even when recorded over centuries let alone one based on a vision. 

However, to be taken seriously, at least for historians, some clear proof needs to exist and with the case of both the well and the house, it’s about as much evidence as can ever be hoped for with a lost trail of records especially after the passage of nearly two millennia.  

So I began to accept that, indeed, this claim should be taken seriously and respected. So I did. I took the que from Tom and with great reverence walked through the rebuilt rooms of the home-now-shrine and watched Tom as he lit a candle in prayer. In fact, Tom’s piety inspired both Randy and me to do the same and three candles were lit in gardens just outside the “House of Mother Mary.”

As we excited the grounds of the shrine, we walked past the long wall of prayers. Looking at the hope, sadness, and devotion in the eyes of those, including Tom, who put a note in one of the many tiny crevasses I pulled from my pocket a little translucent blue cross I bought as we were walking into the compound, and I too said a prayer.

Little did I know but that day would begin a journey of mystical revelations of such profundity that I would humble ego, all that I had been raised to believe, all that I had rationally learned, and fall at the feet of God.