The mailbag:
What's in a picture?
Quiet power.
Pictures can do that: not only worth a thousand words, but packed with feeling.
Anything that inspiration touches, however subtle, is a miracle. Is there Grace when a "miracle" there is not? Grace is always miraculous.
"The picture [above] was seen on Good Friday [at Our Lady of Guadalupe in Puchong, Malaysia] because the sun was bright and shiny and shown through the dome light," writes viewer Mary Beth Lee of Las Vegas, Nevada. "It is a picture that was added to the church about ten years ago as the priest explained in his reply. The picture has faded badly and the only time the picture is seen to the naked eye is when the sun illuminates it on a sunny day through the dome, and it was a sunny day on this year's Good Friday.
"I feel this happened because the Father wanted us to know His presence was with his Son; especially on that day. It is not my intent when forwarding the picture to make it out as a miraculous picture apparition on Good Friday; but just a way that the Father let us know He was with his Son on that day especially by His giving the day a sunny day so that His picture could be seen."
Noted a local resident: "At the 3 p.m. image appeared during the Good Friday Mass. That is the Altar with the Crucifix. Through the wood paneling the sunlight came in and then the image of the Dove appeared. Above the Dove, notice the image of God the Father."
Is the next one "real" [below] -- miraculous?
It looks "photo-shopped": a beautiful portrayal, but a bit too detailed to be an actual cloud. Yet it is sublime. It lifts you up. It gives you pause. Anything inspiration touches... It became a bit "viral" on social media after it was posted on Instagram by "Dance Mom Melissa Gisoni" (whose daughter starred in a reality TV show). It "blew my mind," said Melissa.
Not everyone concurred. Noted one of the comments on the Instagram post: "Not trying to be rude, it's actually a 'photo-shopped' image that's been around a while, and has been used in a lot of advertising."
There is a feeling associated with art; is that still there -- Grace -- when the art is contrived -- passed around, knowingly or unknowingly, as a miracle when it is not?
You can ask
this question more pointedly of all those cases whereby rose petals
"miraculously" fall and have images of the Holy Family or a saint on them --
again in perplexing and sometimes implausible, suspicious detail. As one
viewer pointed out, there are cases in which the petals may even have been
formed by pressing a medal to it.
We believe there have been authentic such cases, including at Lipa in the Philippines, miraculous petals with images on them associated with a now Church-approved apparition. In some cases, the petals allegedly fell at the site from the sky -- materialized. (Lipa was approved last September).
And
then there are photos [Here's
a boatload
of them].
Did the Blessed Mother appear behind a girl, Erin Potter, of Kirkland, Ohio, who was battling leukemia [below; as shown on 19 Action News in Ohio]? Was it just someone standing there, or a paranormality? Can we be both open and skeptical?
"My reaction immediately, it's Mary, they hear us, she's there," her mom, Jen Potter said. As reported by the station, "The picture of Erin, running with sparklers, was taken in her backyard by a friend just after the family learned that Erin's cancer was back, for the third time, and she was facing a second bone marrow transplant."
"I didn't necessarily see it as a sign that Erin is fine and is going to walk out of this, but it's a sign that we're watching over her," Jen added.
What to make of it?
Let's just say: the world is a conundrum!
[Just after the photo was taken, the child had a transplant and for at least the time being, was cancer-free.]
[resources: Retreat: Cherry Hill, New Jersey]
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