it's a tree, stupid (2)
Nearly 2,000 people have signed a petition seeking to prevent the removal of the stump on the grounds of a Limerick church, in which they see the form of the Blessed Virgin, said the Irish Times.
Labourers carrying out work on the grounds of the Holy Mary Parish Church in Rathkeale made the discovery of the supposed image.
"One of the lads said, 'Look, our Blessed Lady in the tree'," said Noel White, chairman of the local graveyard committee. "One of the other lads looked over and actually knelt down and blessed himself, he got such a shock. It was the perfect shape of the figure of Our Lady holding the baby."
People from the town organised the petition in an effort to have the stump, which was due to be dug out of the ground yesterday, made into a permanent fixture at the church.
"It's doing no harm and it's bringing people together from young and old to black and white, Protestant and Catholic, to say a few prayers, so what's wrong with that? There's enough violence and intolerance going on in the world," said shopkeeper Seamus Hogan.
Local parish priest Fr Willie Russell said on radio station Limerick Live 95FM yesterday that people should not worship the tree. "There's nothing there . . . it's just a tree . . . you can't worship a tree."
A spokesman for the Limerick diocesan office said the "church's response to phenomena of this type is one of great scepticism".
"While we do not wish in any way to detract from devotion to Our Lady, we would also wish to avoid anything which might lead to superstition," he said.
10 comments:
It looks like Darth Vader to me.
All of these apparitions look too suspiciously like her conventional image; like all those painted plaster ones in yards in Brooklyn standing in niches made out of a bath tub sawn in half and stood upright.
What would happen, I wonder, if the Virgin Mary appeared in the form of a Jewish unwed teenage mother?
It's too bad we can't teach ourselves to see her everywhere.
I thought Joseph married Mary.
Is "unwed mother" a desire to project backwards a contemporary issue to make people feel more charitable about pregnant teenagers today?
Looks to be a chunky older woman in a burka. Maybe Mary has converted to Islam.
I think Our Lady has put on a few...and has become a cigarette girl. Looks like she's carrying one of those box trays, not a baby!
Oh, and that red candle jar - looks like a melted-down Mr. Peanut.
If Our Blessed Lady is in the tree, isn't it time to call off the dogs?
"While we do not wish in any way to detract from devotion to Our Lady, we would also wish to avoid anything which might lead to superstition," he said.
:^)
--sheila--
"I thought Joseph married Mary.
Is "unwed mother" a desire to project backwards a contemporary issue to make people feel more charitable about pregnant teenagers today?"
I believe that they were betrothed which is not the same as married. Joseph was not the daddy.
Earlier artists, like Giotto, showed Joseph turning his back on Mary as she gives birth. He weeps bitterly because he suspects that she has been unfaithful.
Earlier ages were a lot less squeamish than we are about the scandal surrounding Christ's birth.
Here is that picture by Giotto:
http://www.wga.hu/art/g/giotto/padova/3christ/scenes_1/chris01.jpg
I think unwed teenage mothers are a constant in history. Republican moral scolds didn't discover them.
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