A statue of Our Lady weeps perfumed olive oil, says an investigator at the New Mexico Diocese of Las Cruces.
He says tears that the two metre-plus sculpture of Our Lady of Guadalupe weeps have the same chemical makeup as olive oil treated with perfume.
If blessed, the tears would be chrism, a sacred oil used in the Church in various rituals including anointing the sick and dying.
Photos and a video released by the church show the statue with what appears to be liquid inside the eyes and down the cheeks, mouth and chin.
In one photo, it looks as if tears may have started on the upper eyelids.
The phenomenon has drawn visitors to the church.
It is not merely how it’s happening (or whether it’s happening) but how people are responding to the phenomenon and why they may want to believe in it, one expert says.
“The Catholic Church has a long history of believing in supernatural signs,” John Thavis says.
“There’s a kind of curiosity and enthusiasm when something like this happens because it seems to confirm the traditional belief that God works in our own world and sometimes the supernatural is visible in our world.”
The first sighting of the tears occurred on 20 May – Pentecost Sunday.
Parishioners noticed tears seemed to have been streaming from Our Lady’s eyes.
A church spokesperson said the statue continued “weeping” the next day — something that she said has since occurred several more times.
The priest, Jose Segura says he has never seen anything like it and he first struggled to believe it was real.
He says there are cameras in the church, and no man-made explanation has been determined; if there were evidence of that, he would not allow it to continue, he says.
He believes the tears are authentic.
Source
- Independent
- Washington Post
- Image: YouTube
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News category: World.
