Bleeding Statue
A weeping statue is a statue which has been claimed to be shedding tears or weeping by supernatural means. Statues weeping tears of a substance which appears to be human blood, oil, and scented liquids have all been reported. Other claimed phenomena are sometimes associated with weeping statues such as miraculous healing, the formation of figures in the tear lines, and the scent of roses. These events are generally reported by some Christians, and initially attract some pilgrims, but are in most cases disallowed by the upper levels of the Church or proven as hoaxes.
Reported weeping statues are most often of the Virgin Mary and are at times accompanied by claims of Marian apparitions. However, to date only one single example of a combined weeping statue and apparition (namely Our Lady of Akita) has been approved by the Vatican and the rest have usually been dismissed as hoaxes. An unusual nature of the Our Lady of Akita apparitions was that unlike other cases the entire nation of Japan was able to view the tears of the statue of the Virgin Mary on national television.
Read more about Bleeding Statue: Hoaxes and Skepticism, List of Weeping Statues, Weeping Paintings
Famous quotes containing the words bleeding and/or statue:
“The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That questions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer’s art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“The mind, in short, works on the data it receives very much as a sculptor works on his block of stone. In a sense the statue stood there from eternity. But there were a thousand different ones beside it, and the sculptor alone is to thank for having extricated this one from the rest.”
—William James (1842–1910)