April 27, 2006

'Weeping  for the world'

Virgin Mary statue, said to weep, visits local churches

The statue will be on public display through Saturday making the rounds at several churches in Terrebonne and Lafourche.

By Robert Morris, The Courier

HOUMA- The statue of the Maria Rosa Mystical and about 18 inches tall, adorned with a cloak of golden fabric and holding string of rosary beads.

From underneath her delicately painted plaster eyes, a small group of local Catholics said they felt the miraculous teardrops of the Blessed Virgin and she wept for the world in the living room of a home off Bayou black Drive on Tuesday night.

The tears were not as prodigious as usual, those who brought the statue said, and indeed none were visible on her face around 8p.m. Those at the house noted that the edges of her cloak were damp, however, and said they had caught tears earlier on the rose pedals that stood near the statue’s base

“I took a tear from her” said Jerrie Morgan monuments after touching the statue’s face. “I pulled a tear right off her neck, I could feel it, like it was oily”

The tears bear a message from God, say the northern men who brought it, a call to repentance that will be sounded during the tour of four area churches this week.

“She weeping for the world” said Robert Carter of Springfield, Mass., one of the men who accompanied the state to Houma. “She’s weeping because of the materialism of the world, the violation of God’s commandments, the sin of abortion, the lack of understanding and love of God.

“Mostly people take it as a novelty” Carter continued. “They don’t realize it’s a very serious matter when the mother of God weeps for the world.”

“REAL HUMAN TEARS”

The statue belongs to Neil Harrington Jr., a postal worker from Springfield who said a priest bought the statue in a religious store and it to him as an ordinary birthday gift in the early 1990’s. Harrington said he took it home, displayed it on a table and , when he awoke the next morning, found the area around the statue wet-wt, , he said, from what later tested to e “real Human tears.”

The statue cried again a few days later, Harrington said, but transfigured form.

“the tears came out as human tears, then kind of lipped over an turned into tears of oil” Harrington said. “Oil was streaming down in a big puddle.”

IN the mid -1990’s, spreading stories of the statue’s weeping attracted crowds of hundreds of devotees to Harrington’s parents’ home in Enfield, Conn., according to accounts published n two area newspapers, the Hartford (Conn) Courant and the Union news in Springfield. At one event, other statues in the room began weeping at the same time his did, Harrington said.

“From her tears, there have been miraculous cures,” Harrington said.

The statue’s tears, have accompanied a series of revelations Harrington said he has experienced, hearing voices of both the Virgin Mary and St Francis of Assisi and transcribing tier message into books.

Tuesday night Harrington ah his statue arrived at the Bayou Black home of Joe Waitz Sr., a Houma attorney, who met Harrington in Massachusetts and urged him to bring his massage to Houma.

WORTHY OF BELIEF?

The Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux takes no stance on the validity of Harrington’s allegedly weeping statue whatsoever, said Louis Aguirre, director of communications for the diocese.

“The diocese is aware that the statue is visiting the parishes and neither approves nor disapproves,” Aguirre said “it has not been declared “worthy of belief.”

“Worthy of belief:” means only that Catholic can believe it f they want to, Aguire said, not that they must-unlike a doctrine the church issues on, such as Christ’s divinity. Even renowned events such as the apparitions of Lourde and Fatima are not considered required beliefs for Catholics, ad few other alleged visitations rise to the lever of worthiness.

“Any time you’re talking about anything concerning apparitions or the supernatural, it is never declared “dogma,” where you must believe it,” Aguirre said. “That most the church will ever s it is “worthy of belief.”

In 1995, the Archdiocese of Hartford opened a commission of the event at the Harrington home. In Enfield, but Aguirre said there had been no official ruling there, and the local dioceses will not make any official inquiry in to the statue either. In fact, the Catholic Church relay makes any official proclamation on such claims of divine visitations or manifestations, Aguirre said, remaining neutral unless the visionary’s could lead believers astray.

THE ESSENCE OF FAITH

Among the more than 100 believers at the statue’s first public appearance Wednesday night at St Anthony of Padua Catholic Church in Bayou Black, belied in the statue was a matter of faith.

“She is beautiful,” said Karla Boquet, crying and smiling after viewing the statue.”She brought so much peace to me tonight and to my family. I think she spoke to each f us in our own special way.”

Early in the service, several of the visionary’s friends relayed their own experiences with the statue-visions of spiraling suns, sudden inexplicable cures to life-threatening disease. Finally Harrington himself took the pulpit testifying to a wayward life of wandering drinking and irresponsible carousing that ended after a series of conversion experiences that involved sighs and a mysterious male voice from above, one that he now attributes to St Francis.

Those experiences formed the basis for what is no his ministry, the Seeds of Hope, Harrington said. Their trip to Louisiana was not motivated by money, he said and form the pulpit, Harrington never asked his listeners for any donation or took up a collection, only mentioning sever project of his ministry that need support.

“It’s not a show; it’s not a joke,” he told parishioners. “It’s real.”

The Rev Bob Hilz, a local catholic Priest who visited the church in Bayou Black for the service, said he missed the majority of Harrington’s testimony but has little doubt about the statue weeping. The tears of the Virgin Mary are regularly occurring symbols that represents God’s sadness over the decline of his relationship with man, Hilt explained.

“She is Jesus’ mother, and he is using her as a prophetess all over the world. She ‘s appearing in every nation, almost ever state in the U.S., ”Hilz said, citing other apparitions. “Jesus is sending her all over the world to give us a message.

….There are so many things in the spiritual world we don’t understand.”

Thought the statue did not weep during Wednesday night’s service, merely standing close to it brought tears to the eyes for many parishioners. Following Harrington’s message, they line up to pray before it, most holding rosaries and pressing rose pedals to its eyes.

Surrounded by her husband and three children as they left the sanctuary, Boquet said she hoped to see that statue again another night this week. That the Maria Rosa Mystica did not weep was no disappointment, Boquet said, could only pray for the opening of the heats of those who do not believe.

“Sometimes, life is very …so busy, so high-tech,” Boquet said, still visible moved. “This is so down to earth, so real.”

“It gets to the essence of what life is," said her husband, Danny Boquet, as he held her.

“It touched us to the core,” the weeping woman said