raindrops on roses

Alleged Virgin Image Shines on Glass Building
By Jane Dark
Religion News Service

Authorities in Clearwater, Fla., are trying to control crowds who have come to worship a purported apparition of the Virgin Mary on the side of a downtown office building. More than 2,000 people per day are trekking through downtown streets to gaze at the glass seemingly etched with the outline of the beloved icon.

“You can see her there, right there,” said believer Donna Hutchin, 34, who was holding a rosary and weeping. Hundreds of candles and flowers filled the lawn before the windows of the building, along with stuffed animals, photos of loved ones and handwritten notes asking for divine help.
“It’s the Blessed Mother. Pray! Pray!” Hutchin said, crying out to passersby.

Others were not so certain. “It’s just the sun shining on the glass,” said Capt. Chester Jones, a Clearwater police officer on duty to control crowds. “Next thing you know we’ve got hundreds of people shoving each other to get a look at a big nothing.”

The image, which is impressionistic at best, is not an actual photo-like image, but more of a hazy outline in iridescent colors. Glassworker Gerald Sanders said the effect of sprinklers on treated windows, and the buildup of minerals from city water sources, is more likely than a visitation from the mother of Jesus.

Local religious authorities are neither approving nor denying the claim of the vision, but are cautioning believers to abide by local ordinances and be safe with candles and in large crowds. “It is always good to pray,” said the Rev. Arthur Stock, a Presbyterian minister whose church is nearby. He had no further comment on the truth or fiction of the purported image.

Nuns from Charity House, Clearwater’s center for the homeless, however, were on their knees praying with rosaries and blessing themselves. “It is not for us to question,” said Sister Veronika of Charity House, who declined to give her last name. “It is she. Who are you to ask why?”

John Hawkins, bishop of the Diocese of St. Petersburg, issued a statement that offered a calm but more earthly note: “While we must always be ready to greet Jesus or the Blessed Virgin or the saints when they come to us, they are most likely to be in the form of the hungry, the lost and the lowly. Let us extend our prayers to those who needs us today, here in our communities, and offer thanks that God has given us such opportunities for gratitude and blessings.”

# # #


Angelito José Rodriguez de la Cruz lay back on his bunk. Damn if there wasn’t some damned lump just under his shoulder blade that kept him from getting comfortable, ever. “Granputa,” he said aloud. “This fuggin thing sucks it, Pocho.”

There was no response from his cellie. Big George never had much to say. Angelito couldn’t make up his mind whether he liked the silence or hated it. There was always enough going on outside the bars that Big George’s rock-like presence and mute stare could be ignored. But sometimes, puta. Couldn’t he grunt or something?

Angelito went back to lying on the lump and feeling it. He sometimes poked at the ticking mattress to see if he could move the lump, but there never seemed to be a lump in the actual mattress. Sometimes, just once in a while when the night devils were getting him, in the dark and the penetrating smell of hot, old foot-and-ass, the endless forever of life behind bars, Angelito thought he might be growing a cancer, some horrible lump of unstoppable flesh that would disfigure him, kill him. Angelito didn’t want to die like that. A knife fight, a quick slit between the ribs -- now you’re talking, Pocho. A drive-by, bam! Whatever. But not by a cancer on his shoulder blade. Not a slow and ugly death. Dear sweet Sacred Heart of Jesus, not that.

And now it itched. The lump that was not his mattress but was definitely starting to feel like a lump of some diseased flesh was itching. He could feel it. “Jorge, you got any lotion?”

Big George flicked his eyes over to Angelito with a rare gleam of interest.

“Never the fuggin mind. Forget it, just forget it.” Angelito rolled his back against the wall and gently bumped against the cold cement, just to feel the bounce of flesh and bone against the solidity. His shoulder blades cracked just so against the wall. Mamá always called those his chicken wings. Pollito, she called him, and sang the song:

El pollito dice pio-pio-pio
Quando tiene hambre, quando tiene frio…

Chicken wings, cancer lumps, Big George and the cold dark night ahead.

Angelito propped his head on his elbow and thought about walking down city streets with no iron bars, no walls, just long asphalt corridors, windows lit blue and yellow by TVs and bright lights, and the blast of ranchero music wailing from passing trucks. Cerveza. Las chicas. Freedom.