Sunday, November 18, 2012

Madonna Statue Survives the Storm in Breezy Point

Mark Lennihan/Associated Press

The following excerpt is from NY Times.com:

By

Where the McNulty home once stood on the corner of Oceanside and Gotham, a few blocks from the Atlantic Ocean on the spit of land in Queens called Breezy Point, there now remains a charred, twisted ruin. Flooding and fire have left behind nothing but the foundation. Within it are strewed a dislodged bathtub, an air-conditioner casing battered into a helix shape, a mailbox coated with ashes.

As if all that loss were not loss enough, the storm spared a few tormenting reminders of life before its arrival. In the scorched shell of a cedar closet, screen windows stand neatly stacked. Three rolls of paper towels sit on a pantry shelf, toasted as delicately brown as cookout marshmallows.
      
So, yes, at the corner of Oceanside Avenue and Gotham Walk, the house inherited by the elderly McNultys’ niece Regina after the couple died, is a place of tragedy. It is also, astonishingly, a place of faith. For the one part of the home to survive intact was a statue of the Virgin Mary that Mary McNulty placed in her garden years ago.
      
The statue is one of the only recognizable remnants of the swath of Breezy Point where more than 100 homes burned to the ground while a flood kept firefighters from reaching it. Since the waters withdrew early on Oct. 30, the image of the Breezy Point Madonna has reached the nation, indeed the world, through vivid news photos. Pilgrims have come to leave offerings: a bouquet of yellow roses, four quarters, a votive candle, a memorial card for the victims of Sept. 11, a written admonition that healing begins with acceptance.
       
Ellen Mathis Kail knelt at the shrine five days after the catastrophe. She had spent 30 summers on Breezy Point and watched her parents save for decades to buy a bungalow on Gotham Walk. She had been married in the parish church, St. Thomas More, a few blocks away.
 
Read More: Breezy Point, NY

Image of Virgin Mary Appears on Window at Sime Darby Medical Centre




'Virgin Mary window' to be moved from Malaysian hospital - CathNews

The following excerpt is from CathNews.com:

The window pane at a Malaysian hospital that throngs of Catholics believe has an image resembling the Virgin Mary will be moved to a church, reports AFP on PerthNow.

Hundreds of Catholics have gathered in prayer and worship at the Sime Darby Medical Centre (SDMC) just outside the capital Kuala Lumpur since last week after seeing the image on one of the windows.

Reverend Simon Labrooy, the priest of nearby St. Thomas More Parish, said in a statement that the hospital's management in a meeting with him had agreed to give the glass panel to the Catholic Church.

He said the panel would be moved to another church outside Kuala Lumpur, Marian Church of Our Lady of Lourdes Klang, "which will be more conducive for prayer and reflection".

Read More: Virgin Mary Image