This statue of Our Lady, The Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, has survived the fiery destruction of a mobile home park in Sylmar, California. Just looking at the photo made me wonder how common it is for statues of the Virgin Mary to survive fires.
Wellington's Catholic Cathedral also has a quite large statue that survived a fire that destroyed the original building many years ago. The statue was located very high up on the outside of the building and apparently fell down to the ground during the fire without any damage to it whatsoever.
Related Link: Worth a Thousand Words ~ The Deacon's Bench
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteAt the risk of going the same way as Fugley, I have to say that a more useful miracle would have been burning the statue and savng the homes.
ReplyDeleteDepends what the point of the miracle was, PM.
ReplyDeleteSimilar observation was pointed out when the mosques survived the 2004 tsunami in Sumatra but the surrounding homes and buildings didn't.
ReplyDeleteGreat photo! Sorry to play devil's advocate, but it looks like that statue is stone. I doubt anything else in the caravan park was made of stone, so the result isn't really that surprising.
ReplyDeleteNow if it is actually polystyrene, then that is a real miracle...
Or if it turns out the Satan worshipers next door lost their stone statue of Lucifer!
ReplyDeleteAnd you'd think Lucifer would be fire resistant automatically, wouldn't you?
hmmm...so we measure miracles by their 'usefulness' to humans, do we PM?
ReplyDeleteWhat a boring, utilitarian viewpoint.
As opposed to the exciting, sybaritic viewpoint that it's wonderful God would busy himself looking after a statue while watching people's homes burn to the ground? Yes, I think I do prefer to measure "miracles" my way.
ReplyDeleteThe miracle perhaps was that no-one died.
ReplyDeleteThe miracle perhaps was that people will give themselves freely to help those affected by the fire to rebuild after this tragedy.
We cannot escape the consequences of the world, such is the design.
Water can keep people alive, and water can drown.
With free will, we can choose to turn our suffering into a catalyst for change, or we can choose to turn away.
Man demands freedom as a right. It has been provided as a gift. I don't see much sense asking that God make all our decisions for us - we'd lose our freedom.
PM
ReplyDeleteIf anything made by Rover survived a fire, or didn't burst into flame spontaneously anyway, THAT would be a miracle wouldn't it?;-)
PM, the thing is miracles occur everyday and are not noticed. I bet that even you have experienced miracles and on some level you've gone, yeah thanks God, now I'll go back to ignoring you. Unfortunately, by ignoring God you risk the eternal death, so if God could jolt you awake by burning your house down - He might just do it as the long term benefit far outweighs the temporary loss of the physical - which can be rebuilt. Our souls however, cannot be rebuilt once destroyed and they are far more precious to God than just a building.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteLucyna, how does one know when one see's a miracle? I don't see the laws of physics relaxed on a daily basis...
ReplyDeleteDavid, that's the thing, most miracles don't require the laws of physics to be relaxed. They can appear as coincidences or very fortunate events. Have you never narrowly escaped death where you thought you were lucky?
ReplyDeleteOf course, but those aren’t miracles those are coincidences. Unless you believe in miracles. Then everything is a miracle. (Which is about what Kierkegaard said, I think)
ReplyDeleteAh, but when those things only happen when you pray...
ReplyDeleteMr Tips: good point. My car han't caught fire even once, and I've had it over 4 months now. But miracle or not, I'm still keeping a fire extinguisher in it.
ReplyDelete@ Mr Tips - Rover the defunct car maker, or the dog? If the former, what anti-conflagratory tips can you share for those with a Viking ship on the front of their bonnet? (perhaps they should have stuck with an Austin logo? worked for Minis ;) ).
ReplyDelete