When I was about 12 a Korean Methodist ( or Protestant, I can’t remember) Church about 4 miles from our church ( Catholic)
had several members stating that the image of the Virgin Mary could be seen in the steeple.
For an entire summer there were clots of people standing on the front lawn of this church staring at the steeple trying to catch a view.
Naturally, my uber-Catholic mom, the riotous ex-nun, said, " Why would Mary show up at that church when there is a perfectly good Catholic church just a little ways away. "
Which that always cracked me up and she went on to say, “You know, if this keeps up, I’m going to buy the gas station across the street and turn it into a bar so that the faithful can get a better view of her.”
Hee.
Then there have been mystical thingies happening at some church in Detroit or thereabouts where a statue weeps and no explanation has been given. I would love to mosey down to see this but these churches are usually in the crap section of town and I suspect the Weeping Statue thing is just a secret ploy in the form of a Fund Drive.
well, a few years back, a nice but kinda eccentric Charismatic family claimed that Jesus’s face, looking like the face on the Shroud, appeared in the wood grain of the door. And darned, it did look that way for a while.
They didn’t make a big deal out of it & gather crowds or anything tho.
Btw, I am a Charismatic myself of debatable eccentricity.
I know there have been a few in the Chicago area. Some friends of mine used to live near a Greek Orthodox Church that had a “weeping” icon.
I personally once saw a cloud that looked like the Virgin Mary, but after a few minutes it looked more like a piece of Chicken Satay, so that probably doesn’t count.
Shirley Ujest said, "Naturally, my uber-Catholic mom, the riotous ex-nun, said, " Why would Mary show up at that church when there is a perfectly good Catholic church just a little ways away. "
Now, that’s just frigging hilarious! I want the t-shirt to wear to my next audience with the pope!!!
We had one up where I live just last year. It is quite an amusing story.
The sighting was an old oak tree trunk which had burned a couple of times. People were claiming that it looked like Mary and they began leaving candles, small offerings, and other things. Well, one of the nearby land-owners, who is a very colorful local character, started complaining about all of these people leaving their trash around. The sad irony is the fact that this guy is a rascist nutjob who lives in a small trailer in the middle of a dump. Now I’m not one to judge how other people live but the guy keeps hogs and just lets them run around so the entire place looks and smells like a pig sty.
So anyways, this went on for a couple of weeks and then one day our local nutjob got his chainsaw out and cut that old tree down! He said he was sick of it and if anybody had a problem with it they could come see him. They did an article about it in the local paper and some of the patrons of the “shrine” were stating that they were going to complain to Bureau of Rec or Corps of Engineers (the shrine was near a reservoir, I’m not sure whose jurisdiction it is) but I doubt that anything ever came out of it.
In my street, 100 metres from my house. It’s a perfectly modern suburban street. Yet Mary has shown herself in the sootspot that was left when a prayercandle was blown out.
Yep, I’ve witnessed the whole evolvement of this tiny Lourdes.
It started out with this elderly lady (she likes to be called Mother Martina). She was very religious, always had little statues of Christ in her windows (I know, I passed her window twice a day) etc.
About three years ago, she had a sighting of Maria in the sooty spot in the candle. Also, she said she was having talks with the Virgin.
She opened her garden to visitors, and started giving out the word that she could do prayer healings. Over two years, she gained more and more fame.
In the last year developments have been faster. Every Thursday, she now hold prayer and singing meetings that mostly attract 20 to 50 people. She has built a little chapel and Lourdes cave in her garden. More visitors claim to have seen Mary and have donated funds, which Mother Marina has used to buy a bell for the chapel and to put colored tiles in the garden where Mary had walked, accordign to her visitor. She also has planted a heartshaped patch of different grass, and she will give a little plastic ziplockbag containing a few dried grassleaves (relics from the Holy Heart) to anyone who rings her doorbell and asks for them.
Recently she was interviewed for our local paper. She told the paper she had asked Mary"should I apply for a permit from the city council to build the chapel and a license to sell holy water?" “Don’t do that, Mary had replied. They city council won’t give it to you, but they won’t force you to tear the chapel down once it’s built, either.”
Well…Mary advised Martina right about that.
Martina also has a little car (the electric kind) of the brand Virgo parked in het driveway.
About five years ago a local coffee house in Nashville (Bongo Java, I believe) had a cinnimon bun that looked like Mother Theresa. It made national news. I think there were many tourists stopping to see it.
well, we had… phenomena at our church maybe 10-12 years ago. statues would weep in certain’s priest’s presence, once supposedly even a stained-glass window at someone else’s church. priest himself may have even been visited with a form of stigmata.
occurrences have long since ceased, and priest has moved on to another parish. but it was a 3-ring circus while things were in their heyday. people flocking to the church during Mass, hoping to get a glimpse of the weeping statue. i swear, after a time it seemed like literal busloads of “seekers” were coming. it was getting pretty darn hard for the actual parishioners to be able to attend services in our own church!
the Catholic Church itself seemed pretty ambivalent about the whole matter. they did investigate, to disprove any allegations of fraud, but stopped short of declaring it anything on the order of a miracle. they labeled it something like “phenomena”, or some other weasel-word equivalent.
there were photographs of the manifestations and associated newspaper articles, and a small book was published regarding the incident. but in general, i think everyone in the parish was very much relieved when the whole thing finally died down.
thankfully, i don’t believe there were ever any claims of a major “message” associated with the whole show. i imagine that it would have been orders-of-magnitude worse if people started expecting any pronouncements as part of the deal.
Supposedly there is a crucifix in an Ambridge church that has closed it’s eyes, or something about the eyes shifting. (Ambridge isn’t QUITE my “area”, but it’s in Allegheny County, I think, or near enough to count)
I don’t remember all the details-but it made either Sightings or Unsolved Mysteries.
