Updated
- July 2, 2003 - Reported in Spirit
Daily.com online newspaper. Taken from a farther perspective, this top
photo, sent to us by Sister Margaret Coyne of Portland, Maine, shows the striking
nature of the image formed in condensation inside a window at an office at Milton
Hospital about ten miles from Boston. The seeming phenomenon has been attracting
crowds for the past two weeks.
Some
believe the message is connected with a coming merger between Milton, which does
not do abortion, and a hospital that does. Bottom picture, another window at
the hospital that reminds many of an unborn baby. Yet a third holy representation
is seen on a chimney.
Updated - July 4, 2003 First Mary, now Jesus said to adorn U.S. hospital
Friday
July 4, 2003 - Reported in Reuters. Written by Greg Frost. Milton, Massachusetts.
First the Virgin Mary turned up in a hospital window. Now Jesus is apparently
on the chimney. Thousands of onlookers
are flocking to this Boston suburb, where believers have seen the divine in otherwise
ordinary bits of glass, mortar and brick.
"That's
a miracle," exclaimed Tina Montgomery, one of hundreds of people who gathered
on a hot afternoon in a parking lot to gaze up at a window on the third floor
of Milton Hospital. The window is clearly
unique when compared to those around it. While other panes on the building are
clear, the window that has drawn worldwide attention is clouded over with a white
film. From some angles, the image caused by the film appears to shimmer.
"It's Mary, and she's holding a baby, and he has something in his hand,"
Montgomery said excitedly. Many people say they see the same image. So many, in
fact, that the hospital has decided to cover the window with a tarpaulin for all
but three hours a day to ensure calm for patients and to cut congestion on local
roads.
This does not sit well
with pilgrims like Montgomery, who calls the move "sacrilege." Others
say the cover has only caused new images to appear and as proof they point to
a nearby chimney where they say the face of Jesus has shown up.
BROKEN
SEAL
Since it was first noticed
in June, more than 40,000 people have descended on the not-for-profit community
hospital just south of Boston to see the phenomenon for themselves. Some pilgrims
stand in awe or pray to themselves while clutching rosary beads. Others bow their
heads and place their hands on the brick wall beneath the window.
Glass
experts tell Milton Hospital that a seal on the double-paned window broke years
ago and that a drying agent seeped between the panes, causing the discolouration.
Sceptics have seized on this to say the image purported to be Mary is no more
than a random assortment of molecules that just happen to resemble the religious
icon.
"OK if that's true
then why doesn't it look like a clown or an elephant?" asked Mirna LeBlanc,
a Paraguayan native who moved to Boston 16 years ago. "You
can sit and stare at anything that happens and think of a logical explanation,"
said Chet Flynn of Townsend, Massachusetts. "I just happen to believe that
there's something a little bit more to it than that."
Hospital
spokeswoman Susan Schepici confirms that officials at the facility have asked
the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston for "guidance" on how to deal
with the apparition and the crowds it has drawn.
Although
the archdiocese has not replied formally, a church spokesman says that if the
image leads people to deepen their faith then it is a good thing.
For
Milton Hospital, however, it is becoming an expensive thing. Schepici reckons
the hospital is spending $10,000 a week to arrange visiting hours and control
traffic, but she says officials do not consider the flood of visitors a "nuisance."
ABORTION
WARNING?
Not content to simply
gaze at the images in wonder, the faithful -many of them Roman Catholic are coming
up with reasons for the apparitions. Some, like LeBlanc, think the apparition
is somehow linked to current events like the clergy sexual abuse scandal that
has embroiled the Boston archdiocese for the past 18 months or the war in Iraq.
"These
are bad things that have happened," said LeBlanc. "Mary's asking us
for more prayers. We've abandoned her." But other Catholics suggest in ominous
tones that the apparition may be a warning to Milton Hospital about joining forces
with Beth Israel-Deaconess, a Boston hospital that performs abortions.
Milton
Hospital, which does not deliver babies or terminate pregnancies, signed
a clinical affiliation with Beth Israel on June 1 - about the same time the image
began to gain media attention.
"This is a sign that this hospital has been trying to merge with Beth Israel
to make this an abortion clinic," said a Catholic woman who would only identify
herself as Vidalina.
"I strongly believe the Blessed Mother doesn't want that, and I strongly
believe she's here to tell us that," she said.
To back up their claims of a warning, some pilgrims speak of another window on
the building that contained an image of a fetus developing in the womb. That window,
they say, has since been removed by the hospital. [Photo is second at the top
of this page, image from Spirit
Daily.com online newspaper.]
Schepici,
the hospital spokeswoman, says she has heard such talk but never seen the second
window herself.
Updated
- July 12, 2003 - Milton Madonna bathed in color: Proof of miracle to some;
proof of science to others. Reported
in Spirit Daily.com
online newspaper.
The Patriot Ledger in Massachusetts reports
that a greenish spot has formed around the "stomach" of the Milton Hospital
window image that many believe is an apparition of the Virgin Mary. "A window
image that some consider a likeness of the Virgin Mary has taken on an iridescence,
convincing some of its heavenly origins and others of an earthly explanation,"
reports Jessica Van Sack. "The 'Milton Madonna,' a monochrome silhouette
that has enraptured 50,000 visitors to Milton Hospital since it was first noticed
on June 10, now has small patches of green, blue, yellow and red. To believers,
it is another sign that the mother of Jesus has come to reassure the church, the
nation or the world. To skeptics, it's just more evidence of a faulty window seal."
According
to the report, at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, when a security guard removed the blue tarpaulin
to reveal the image for its daily viewing hours, the regulars squinted, pointed
at the iridescent spots, and chattered about ''another miracle.''
''I want
to cry,'' said Krystyna Mateli, 24, of Dorchester, surrounded by her extended
family.
Doreen Gianci, 46, of Holbrook said she goes to see the image almost
every day. She brought her seven children with her on Tuesday.
''I
feel like it's a magnet like I'm drawn to it,'' she said. ''The people are really
hungry for God here.''
One skeptic attributes the perception that the image
is Mary to a phenomenon called pareidolia, a psychological term for the mind's
obsessions with finding patterns in essentially random objects, from clouds to
wood grain. ''Old bottles have an iridescence. One sees iridescence on glass,''
Nickel said. ''It's obviously nothing very mysterious.'' The newspaper reports,
however, that while "product technicians at Andersen Windows said cracks
in double-pane windows often cause a large, circular, cloudy formation on the
windows that can be permanent, like a greenhouse effect, they could not explain
the colors."
Patricia S.
Brown, director of the Architectural Engineering Institute at the American Society
of Civil Engineers, said there are many variables that could contribute to effects
in the window. The window is in the rear of the ophthalmology clinic at a medical
office building. It is covered by drywall that blocks the light and frustrates
further study, but which also eliminates any possibility of a hoax. The large
crowds of the first few weeks have subsided, but hundreds of regulars still visit
to sing hymns, say prayers and gaze longingly at the image.
Theories
abound. To some, the appearance has a healing influence on an archdiocese wounded
by a clergy sex scandal. To others, its placement in Milton, the birthplace of
former President George Bush, is a sign for the nation or the world. "The
hospital is still awaiting guidance on how to proceed from the Archdiocese of
Boston," says the Ledger.
The iridescence is not the only perceived addition
to the Milton mystery. Last week, gazers spotted a cross in a faint discoloration
on the chimney bricks, and around another corner, talk circulated of another window
image looking like Jesus. There was also a second window with what looked strikingly
like a fetus, but according to the Washington Post, hospital officials have removed
that window.
Updated
- July 23, 2003 -It’s no miracle, church decides of Milton Madonna
Reported
in the The Patriot Ledger -South of Boston.com Written by Jessica Van Sack - The
Boston Roman Catholic Archdiocese has concluded that the Milton Madonna, an image
in a Milton Hospital window, is not a miraculous appearance of the Virgin Mary.
‘‘You
cannot preclude natural causes as an explanation of the image,’’ the
Rev. Christopher Coyne, a spokesman for the archdiocese, said yesterday.For
the image to be considered a miracle by the church, he said, earthly origins such
as condensation must be ruled out.
‘‘A miracle by its very nature means that it cannot be naturally explained,’’
the Rev. Coyne said. He said the church
has completed its investigation of the image, which has brought thousands of the
faithful and the curious to the hospital grounds over the past six weeks. It
can take years for the church to rule that something is a miracle. Apparitions
of the Virgin Mary to three children at Fatima, Portugal, in 1917 were not officially
ruled to be miracles until 1930. Since 1900, fewer than 10 reported sightings
of the Virgin Mary have received church validation out of tens of thousands of
claims.
The window silhouette
was first noticed on June 10. About two weeks ago, flecks of green, blue, yellow
and red appeared throughout the image, further fueling the faith of window regulars.The
Rev. Coyne said that although the image is not a miracle by definition, the archdiocese
will not adopt an official position on the exact origin of the image, ‘‘nor
do we expect to in the future.’’
Church doctrine requires a miracle to be an observable event that lacks a scientific
explanation, facilitates healing or good and conveys a religious message. In 1978,
the church codified the proper protocol for investigating apparitions.Traditionally,
the Vatican does not get involved in proclaiming miracles, leaving investigations
up to local church officials. Bishops determine if an investigation is warranted,
and then form a team of experts usually consisting of doctors, the pastor of the
closest church and someone with a science background.
The church has a tradition of skepticism in dealing with alleged apparitions,
most of which tend to be images of the Virgin Mary, said the Rev. Johann Roten,
director of the Marian Library at the University of Dayton. A
church declaration would come in a statement that the Rev. Roten called ‘‘a
theological negative,’’ and it would not even use the term ‘‘miracle.’’
A validation would say, ‘‘There’s nothing that bars us from believing
in the supernatural nature of the event.’’
The first documented claim of a religious apparition came in A.D. 275 , the Rev.
Roten said. The most recent authentication by the Roman Catholic Church came less
than a year ago, in the case of a woman who claimed to receive a message of peace
from the Virgin Mary in Amsterdam in 1948. The
Rev. Roten said the Boston Archdiocese did not engage in a full-scale investigation
of the Milton window, but more ‘‘looked into the matter.’’
The Rev. Coyne did
not comment on the church’s specific fact-finding attempts. Investigations
in general have proved difficult because there is no way to reach the window from
inside. In the rear of the ophthalmology clinic at a medical office building,
the window is covered by drywall that blocks the light and frustrates further
study, but which also eliminates any possibility of a hoax.
Window-gazing crowds have subsided to local viewers and regulars, and the hospital
still has no plans to change the 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. viewing hours, spokeswoman
Susan Schepici said. Yesterday at 5:30,
about 50 visitors peered at the window, even amid forecasts of a downpour. Some
said they disapproved of the church’s position, but hoped for future investigations
to reach a different conclusion.‘‘That’s
not condensation,’’ said Deirdre Cimeno, 32, of Dedham. ‘‘How
could they think that’s condensation? Really.’’
Others said they felt the miracle is so obvious that the church’s findings
were irrelevant.‘‘They can
say whatever they want, but I just think they don’t want anybody making fun
of the church,’’ said Anna Cuilla, 74, of South Boston.Ciulla
said the definition of a church miracle should not take into account the origin
of the symbol, but rather what it means for people.
‘‘I believe there’s condensation,’’ she said on her fourth
trip to the window last night. ‘‘But condensation has appeared on my
windows and it didn’t look like the Madonna.’’A
few skeptics said they agreed with the church’s determination.‘‘I
don’t believe it’s a miracle,’’ said Ciulla’s friend,
Ellie Selvitelle, 71, of South Boston. ‘‘It doesn’t look like anything
to me.’’Randolph resident
Jim Clark said authenticating the image as a miracle would bring people much-needed
hope.
‘‘Who’s
to say it is and who’s to say it isn’t?’’ he said. ‘‘This
world can use as many miracles as it can get these days.’’
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