How to discern? In what way do we tell if something is really supernatural, and, if so, whether the supernatural source is a good one?

Those are questions we grapple with on a daily (and at times an hourly) basis. Visionaries, locutionists, and healers (now too, stigmatics) arrive on the scene like clockwork. Recently we referred to one visionary from the Midwest who had been promoted by a well-known priest, only to learn that the archdiocese with authority over the case had expressed serious reservations.

An alleged seer in Russia who was the focus of a more recent story is also the focus of controversy.

And we are in contact with experts as we still try to discern whether a report of bleeding icons in a remote part of Italy is authentic. (More on this soon.)

Most baffling is the explosion of reports of images that seem to manifest themselves in common objects -- from trees, mirrors, and window panes to food items (most recently, pretzels). Some of it seems absurd (eBay sold a mysterious formation that appeared on a grilled cheese sandwich, and there have also been images in tortillas and a myriad of other foodstuffs). But, then, who are we to say how God and the supernatural work?

We know only that the Lord can interface with our dimension any time He feels like it.

At left is one alleged example. It was reported by Antoinette Santangelo of Cedar Knoll, New Jersey, as taking place Sunday, January 16.

On that day at about one in the afternoon Antoinette had filled her one-year-old grandson's bottle with milk at the sink, and in her rush, a spot of it fell onto the ledge in front of her sink, which she discovered only on her return four hours later.

"Since I had a pot in the sink, I set out to wash it," she recalls. "However, before I could do so, I felt a strong force pushing me back from the sink. I wondered why this was so strong."

When the New Jersey grandmother went back to washing the pot, it was then that she noticed the milk drop. On closer examination she was "filled with emotion to see the suffering Face of Jesus" on it. "It was so plain to the eye and I wondered how this could be!" she testified on a letter that has found itself into general circulation. 

Antoinette immediately called her husband, she says, a skeptical type who nonetheless recognized it immediately "as the Face of Jesus."

The same was true of a son who tried to snap digital photographs of the image  but was unable to get any to "take."

At about 6:30 p.m. a friend who is a nun arrived and took photos with a simple, old-fashioned camera, relates Antoinette. It was a new roll of 24 pictures and the nun took photo after photo, until that film was finished.

The next day, when the nun, a Sister Dolores, went to develop the film, says Antoinette, the technician told her that only one photo had come out -- and he was so intrigued by the situation that he too stopped over at the house with a professional camera. When he went to develop his own film, not one picture succeeded.

A priest too came and "found this incredible," says Antoinette, who adds that the image remained until Thursday (four days later), when, finally, after a wondrous week, it disappeared...

What to make of it?

Then there is Olivia Smith of Petrolia, Pennsylvania, who has been trying to discern a new alleged phenomenon.

The beads on rosaries, she asserts, at times feel as if they are growing spurs that are like thorns, and that then fade away or disappear.

"I joined this prayer group at Troy Hill in St. Anthony's Chapel," she wrote us. "We were honoring the Infant Jesus that day. I believe it was the last Saturday in June. I went with another Legionary of Mary whose name is Lori and again they were having Adoration of the Holy Eucharist. 

"We knelt close to the front of the chapel, about two rows back and were praying the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary. We were at the scourging of the pillar when I noticed a thorn on the wooden bead. I showed Lori. Simultaneously a thorn had also appeared on her rosary. It was sharp and pointed -- not large but there was no question it was a  thorn. We were surprised and in awe!"