According to reports, an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary recently appeared on a seventh floor hospital window in Subang Jaya, Malaysia. The events surrounding the alleged 'apparition' first occurred on 8 October, but news of it soon went viral on social networking sites, to the point that huge crowds were gathering outside the hospital all last week.
The window has now been removed from the hospital after it became apparent that the image could not be scrubbed away. It is currently being housed in a local Catholic church, St Thomas More's, which agreed to take it from the hospital authorities as it seems the medical centre could not cope with the number of onlookers gathering outside the facility.
Personally, I have no idea what this image is. To me, it looks nothing like what I would imagine the Virgin Mary to look like -- why is it that I can never see the miraculous in these things? Some have suggested that the 'smudge' might be a rust stain, or that someone painted the 'picture'. It appears, though, that both these explanations have now been ruled out -- for the time being, at least.
Just before the window was taken to the local parish church, it seems that another image became visible to those who had gathered below. They claimed that the likeness of Our Lord himself could be seen on a pane under the one being venerated as the location of the 'Marian apparition'. Emirates24, which covered this story in its 'Crazy World' section, reported that bystanders maintained that the more recent image, which could be seen on a fifth floor window, was of the "adult Jesus Christ."
Malaysia is a Muslim country, where it is not easy to be a Christian. Whatever it is that recently happened around Subang Jaya's Sime Darby Medical Centre seems to have been a cause of great consolation to many local Catholics -- most of whom are migrant workers from places as far afield as the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Nigeria. This event may even prove to be a means of bringing those Muslims who already have a devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary closer to Jesus Christ. But, of course, if a purely natural explanation is eventually found for the 'apparition' then all the excitement of the past few days might actually prove to be counter-productive.
The decision to house the hospital window in St Thomas's was made by the Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur, Murphy Nicholas Pakiam. The church's parish priest, Father Simon LaBrooy, has urged caution, reminding the faithful that an investigation must be made by the Church to determine the nature of the alleged apparition. According to AsiaOne, Rev Dr Sherman Kuek, a Deacon and the Director of the Malacca-Johor Diocesan Pastoral Institute, also warned that the authenticity of the image had by no means 'been confirmed', even if it has excited a deeper devotion amongst the nation's faithful.
One thing I noticed about the reporting of this story was the way that, despite evidence to the contrary, Catholics -- especially in the British press -- were being depicted as credulous simpletons, ready to believe any old guff. But, as we know, the Church has a very rational mind when it comes to alleged miracles and the like. Unless an event cannot be rationally explained by natural science, then alleged miracles and apparitions are rarely, if ever, sanctioned by the Church -- even if individual Catholics personally choose to believe in their authenticity.
For more videos, see: here (long one) and here
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