The Mysteries of Religious Phenomena
Reports of weeping and bleeding religious items have always fascinated
and puzzled people throughout the ages. There are hundreds of these
on record around the world anywhere there is a devout catholic community
the phenomenon seems likely to happen at any time, though Italy, and
the United States are the places where a high proportion of the cases
have occurred. Statues or paintings of the virgin Mary and Christ are
the usual focus for this phenomenon, but any saint could be the focus
and even non-saints .the catholic church is very loath, to endorse this
type of phenomena and the miracles and cures which often follow and
like cardinal sin attempts to dissuade believers from taking an interest
in such events. So these happenings are outside the control of the official
church and the believers who flock to the places and are not doing so
with church approval. They may seem indeed to be disregarding church
instructions even transferring their allegiance from the official church
to the religious figures they see. The most important thing the church
has to do is to see if whether or not any external objective intelligence
has a hand in this kind of experience or whether the encounters or whatever
is solely personal or self-induced. It takes a long time for this to
be forthcoming by the catholic church.
Weeping Images can result in outbreaks
of religious fervour as occurred in syracuse in Sicily in 1953.
In August of that year Antonietta Januso was pregnant and bedridden
after suffering seizures blindness and fainting spells. On aug.29
she had a series of fits and following that noticed that a plaster
statue of the Madonna was weeping. News of the miracle spread
rapidly and crowds gathered samples of the tears were analyzed
and found to be indistinguishable from human tears. The church
officially recognized the miracle and a shrine was erected where
the statue is still venerated by pilgrims. Disbeliever has of
course found ways of denying the strangeness of the phenomenon.
It has been suggested that plaster statues are coated with plastic
and if this is punctured at the eyes the water naturally held
in the plaster will seep out producing tears. An enterprising
scientist in America Shawn Carlson has devised six ways to make
an image weep. In one experiment he used salt crystals to make
a copy of the Mona Lisa cry.
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Blood oozing from Christ's
eyes. |
There is no mention of his having made any Images cry tears indistinguishable
in composition from human tears. The Syracuse Madonna wept real tears.
And in other cases where analysis of the liquid has been performed they
were pronounced to be real human tears. As if weeping real tears were
not strange enough, in one instance the tears vanished when they reached
the bottom of the frame in which the weeping portrait of the virgin
was mounted. A priest confirmed that this was happening in island park
New York, in March 1960. Of course hoaxes do occur. In Lomello near
Pavia, Italy in Aug. 1980 a plaster Virgin was seen to be weeping colored
tears, and it was rumored that the owner had been seen squirting pink
water on to the statue from his son’s water pistol. Bleeding Images
are perhaps harder to fake particularly when the blood is analyzed and
found to be human. Take the case in January 1971 in Maropati (Italy),
a lawyer woke and found that a painting of the Madonna hanging over
his bed was dripping blood. First he found blood spots on their pillowcases,
but neither he nor his wife had cut themselves.
Bleeding Jesus, and Hosts
appear.
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The blood spots appeared a few more times, he realized
they was dripping from under the glass of the painting? The liquid
was coming from the Madonna’s eyes like tears, and from
her heart, hands, and feet. It was also dripping from the hands
and feet of the two saints kneeling beside her. Some of the liquid
began to form crosses on the white wall below the painting. The
bleeding occurred daily for a while, later it became more intermittent.
Police searched for signs of hoaxing, but found none, they took
the painting and placed it in a locked box at police headquarters.
The next morning they found blood on the painting again, analysis
proved it to be human blood.
In 1975, in Pennsylvania, samples of blood taken from a Christ
statue were analyzed and found to be human blood but in an advanced
state of decomposition. the red cell count being very low. Miracle
cures have followed some bleedings, as in Baguio City (Phillipines)
where in 1983 the exposed heart on the breast of a 10-foot statue
of the Virgin was bleeding, the blood soaking a white sheet placed
below the statue. The sculptor of the statue, one of the many
cured, recovered from cancer. But there are also fakes, as in
Ste-Marthe-sur-le-lac in Quebec, in December 1985 and January
1986, when a statue of the Virgin began to weep and sweat blood.
A TV crew scraped some of the blood from the face and had it analyzed
and found it to be composed of pork drippings, beef fat and vegetable
oil. Later someone admitted that he regularly applied the mixture
to the statue.
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Sometimes the substance which is secreted
is neither tears nor blood, but oil of some kind. A statue of
St Charbal (Lebanese saint canonized in 1977) oozed oil in Concord,
Sydney, New South Wales (Australia), beginning on March 15, 1985
and continued for a week. A plastic statue of the Virgin Mary
in Ramallh (Jordan) oozed olive oil in October 1987, whenever
ten-year-old Samaher Hnout touched it. Many times she climbed
on a table at her home to reach the statue which stood on a wall
unit, touched the statue, then rubbed her oily fingers on the
hands of the pilgrims who gathered to see the miracle. The liquid
found from a statue of the Virgin Mary at Rmaich (Lebanon) in
November and December 1983 was said to be a mixture of blood and
olive oil. In Montreal, (Canada) an icon of the “Mother
of God” which came from Mount Athos in Greece began to stream
with fragrant myrrh in November 1982.
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What started as Holy Water
changed to oil, then blood. |
The Virgin Mary weeping
oil. |
An e-mail came from a Julie, about close friends
of hers, who over the past 15 months have been having spiritual
phenomenon occur at their home. The manifestations began during
lent with a holy picture and a crucifix bleeding. A short time
later the man in the home received the stigmata wounds of Christ.
Over a period of time the faithful began visiting their home and
leaving religious icons and pictures, which began bleeding and
weeping a scented oil. These manifestations were occurring in
the living room. The man also claims to receive apparitions from
our lady. Over the past few months hosts the Eucharist, have been
appearing out of nowhere. These hosts are different shapes and
sizes and in some cases you can tell that some are approximately
50 years old. Some of these hosts weep oil and some bleed. The
holy water that is put out in this home turns to a scented oil
also. Last evening I (Julie) witnessed holy water turn to oil
and to blood. I am a Catholic and I believe in spiritual manifestations
but I have never witnessed anything like this before. I have witnessed
this man receive the stigmata and I have also seen him bleed from
his eyes and at present time he has what appears to be large blisters
on both sides of his wrists that are oozing oil.
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It isn’t often that we get the opportunity to investigate something
that could possibly be of a good and positive nature, the majority of
the cases are on a negative level. So when the case came in to Ed /
Lorraine Warren, they were preparing for their England trip. The Warren’s
assigned the case to John Zaffis and Mike Roberge. Ed said to us, this
is a golden opportunity for you two men, so set up the investigation.
We did, two days after that we were in the home setting up the equipment
and taking photographs of the statues. It was very interesting to see
the oil and blood on many things, we did witness oil oozing off of some
of the objects, but it was already on the statues when we arrived. We
had stayed at the home for 24 hours but unfortunately we did not witness
any new blood or oil on the objects. Shortly after the Warrens returned
home, they made arrangement to visit this home to see if they could
witness something, but unfortunately they did not either. So, it is
hard to say if this is something miraculous or is something else at
work here, for now we are not sure but the investigation will continue.
Story by John Zaffis
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