Weeping and Bleeding Icons and Statues

Weeping Jesus Icon at Jesus birthplace


According to hundreds of eyewitnesses, a painting of Jesus is weeping red tears. The painting is no ordinary icon for it hangs in the Bethlehem Church of the Nativity, above the very spot where Christ is said to have been born.

Many hundreds of Christian pilgrims, of all denominations, together with Jews and Muslims, say they have seen the tears. The weeping was first noticed by the 60 year old Muslim woman who cleans that part of the church every morning.
Sadika Hamdan told reporters that she was working alone in the shrine when suddenly " a light came from the column and the picture of the Messiah Jesus, peace be upon him, began to cry. It was beautiful, beautiful. He opened and closed his eye and later tears fell, red tears. At first, I was very frightened, and I wondered why Jesus was speaking out to me, a Muslim. But I went and got the brothers, and they saw it too, and we realised it was a miracle. I have been coming to this church for 22 years and it is the first time in history that I have seen such a sight."

At the time of the report about 600 people were visiting the shrine each day, and thousands were expected to attend the Sunday services. As well as the tears, pilgrims have also been reporting that the painting of Jesus was winking at them. There are of course no shortage of sceptics dismissing the whole story, but Stephanie Nolen, writing for a Canadian newspaper, had this to say :

"This reporter went to Bethlehem armed with the double protection of lapsed Catholicism and journalistic cynicism, and joined a crowd of about 100 kerchiefed Cypriot women clutching candles and videorecorders. 'Tears, tears,' they were whispering, some with tears in their own eyes. So I looked up - and Jesus winked at me."
(Source - Reuter 28 Nov, 1996; The Globe and Mail, Canada, 4 Dec, 1996 ; CNN Article)


Real Blood from Santiago

"A six-inch-high porcelain statue began weeping tears of blood. The liquid staining the image is genuinely blood, and human at that. The Santiago coroner's office pronounced the substance is type O-4 human blood. The statue weeps regularly, particularly in the presence of children."
( Source: The Guardian, UK, 4 December 1992 )

It was confirmed by doctors attached to the police Criminal Investigation Department that the mysterious red liquid, which flows from the eyes of a statue of the Virgin Mary belonging to a Chilean woman, is indeed human blood. It was stated by Dr Inelia Chacon that three samples of the liquid examined in a laboratory were shown to be blood.

The small blue and white porcelain statue belongs to Olga Rodriguez, a housewife from the working class La Cisterna district in the south of Santiago. Since 14 November, when the tears of blood were seen for the first time, the modest home of Mrs Rodriguez has become the main attraction for residents of the district. The Church has refused to take up a position concerning this strange phenomenon. (From: L'Impartial, Switzerland)


Where Miracles Never Cease

In a hot and crowded upstairs bedroom in an average-looking house in an average-looking community one hour east of Los Angeles, miracles are taking place. Every Sunday at 5:30 pm, when the gathered crowd says the rosary prayer, oil (or sometimes blood) begins to flow from statues of the Virgin Mary that are kept on an altar in the room. The altar is filled with dozens of statues of Mary, Jesus and Joseph. The walls of the room are literally covered with pictures of the three venerated figures. You've heard of crosses of light? What about crosses of shadow? At least two of them have appeared on the walls of the bedroom. But there's no light source creating the shadows. They seem almost like stains, but are too perfectly-shaped. There's even an image of the Virgin on the windowscreen.

On this particular Sunday afternoon, the room is crammed with people, mostly women, mostly Hispanic and Arabic. Nasreen (whose house this is, whose miracles these are) is Kuwaiti. The reciting of the rosary prayer takes on an almost Tower of Babel quality as Spanish, Arabic, English and later French can be heard in the cacophony of voices praying together faithfully. Devotional songs are sung in various tongues. The largest statue of Mary on the center of the altar looks as if it's weeping, as a bead of oil reflects light from below the right eye.

When the praying ends, a crush of people converge on the altar to see the new oil on the Virgin Mary statues and to receive from Nasreen a cotton ball soaked with the sacred liquid (it's actually pure olive oil, I'm told). The cotton ball is to be placed in a jar of commercial 100 per cent "Extra Virgin" olive oil, and the liquid used for healing purposes. I hear a woman's voice say, "You can see the new oil on Joseph's chin and on the cross." Upon closer inspection, a statue of Jesus, Mary and Joseph can be seen with an oily substance on its surface.

As one crowd leaves the room, another lines up outside the door and down the stairs to see the statue and to receive the blessed oil. Nasreen patiently presses out the oil from a plastic squeeze bottle labeled "Holy Water" and gives each person a cotton ball soaked with it. The oil had presumably been collected from the statue on previous occasions.

As the crowd thins out, Nasreen finally takes a breather. She opens a photo album filled with pictures of the miracles: the statue crying tears of blood; the head of the statue facing at different angles (it once "bowed" its head in front of a crowd of 150 people, she says, "to thank the people for coming with faith in their hearts"); a dramatic image of Jesus superimposed on a photo of her garden; and so on.

I leave the house convinced, but under-informed. I call Nasreen a couple of weeks later to fill in some details.

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Crying Madonna in Mura, Spain
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