Santa Ana hosted two effigies that decade: on the tile at Our Lady of the Pillar Church, and within the frosted bathroom glass of an apartment.
That same year, hundreds claimed to have seen Guadalupe in the grime of a kitchen window in Oxnard. In 1992, an Episcopal priest led services underneath a diseased Chinese elm in North Hollywood on which he said sap had formed into her shape. Though it's an area where the biggest city is named after a Virgin Mary - L.A.'s original name was El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles - Guadalupe sightings in Southern California are rare. "Since she has been faithful to them, they are faithful to her - in fact devoted to her and seeking her accompaniment in all the joys and crises of life." "For 500 years, she has faithfully accompanied her people in this clash and encounter of peoples called America," he said. That doesn't surprise Timothy Matovina, a Notre Dame theology professor who specializes in Latino Catholicism. But in recent years, as American Catholicism has increasingly turned Latino, and especially Mexican, it's the Guadalupe manifestation of Mary that has popped up the most.
People in the United States have reported cameos by the Virgin Mary on terrestrial things - on tortillas or grilled cheese sandwiches, hidden within a billboard in New Orleans, or as part of a Chicago underpass - for decades. "We don't know how the Spirit works, but events like this point us to a higher reality," he said, noting that even non-Catholics walk by and linger. "She's telling us," Gomez said, "not to lose faith."įather Cordero doesn't call what's in front of his rectory an apparition but a "sign" of something bigger. Briseida Gomez keeps a dried rose in her office that she once grabbed from the puddle.
She said people already attribute miracles to this Guadalupe - arthritis cured, citizenship applications granted, bills magically paid. Leticia Suarez, 48, lives down the street and tends to the flowers left outside on a daily basis. The church's two official, larger Guadalupe shrines - a statue near the confessional booths, and a fountain in the back - look lonely by comparison. People have shown up to pay respect, kneeling and dabbing their fingers in the murky water to anoint themselves. The cross-hatched edges? The rays of light that always surround Lupita. Lighter splotches that run down the center? Guadalupe's pink-colored robe, her beatific face, and hands clasped in prayer. Its dark swirls? Those are her outer greenish-blue tunic. So how exactly do some people see the Virgen de Guadalupe from this humble water stain? Votive candles are not allowed within the shrine because the melted wax "might ruin its integrity," said Father John Cordero.