Holy Relic Visitation: Our Lady of Fatima Prayer Group, 10/29/2016

Our prayer group's mysterious
Rosa Mystica statue.

Yesterday was another extraordinary meeting for Our Lady of Fatima Prayer Group (and I literally mean extraordinary).

It was rainy and cold, but most of our regular members made it to the Gruber home, anyway, and the meeting was on. Now the rosary and other prayers offered are always the central focus to our monthly meetings and are accompanied by a sense of the Holy Spirit... but when out-of-the-ordinary things also happen, the Holy Spirit "vibe" during the meeting always gets turned up way high. That's what happened last night... and again, it involved our group's Rosa Mystica statue.

When we pray the rosary together, different members of our group randomly lead a decade of the five Rosary Mysteries. Everything was progressing normally until the 5th Luminous Mystery - Christ institutes the Eucharist - at which point, one of our female members ("BM") was leading the Our Father and Hail Mary prayers. I happened to look up at the statue when I immediately noticed that its face had again "transfigured", taking on the life-like, dewy appearance that our members have sometimes noticed during our prayer... but this time around, I thought I saw both eyes on the image actually blink a few times before the pupils shifted to the right to gaze directly at BM. At the same time, the statue's expression appeared sweet and serene, and like a mother who seemed very pleased about something (how fortunate for BM!).

While intently observing the statue's face, I was startled when felt a few taps on my left forearm and I turned to see our prayer-leader, Dre, motioning to me to look at the statue's face. I knew then that she was also seeing an unusual transformation in the Rosa Mystica. We both kept quiet about the matter, but I did take out my cellphone and snapped a couple of photos of the statue before resuming to pray. The statue soon returned to its usual appearance, at least from my perspective. 

After the last prayer ended and most of the members had gone into the kitchen for our potluck dinner, Dre and I pulled BM aside to inquire if anything significant - good or bad - had happened to her recently. BM replied that she had actually gone to confession that morning after having been away from the confessional for a long period of time, and she was feeling great about her experience. BM then asked about our concern after which we both shared with her the unusual movements we saw in the statue. Another group member who was sitting close by overheard our conversation and let out a loud gasp before disclosing that she had seen the statue turn its head slightly towards BM while she was leading the decade... but she opted to not say anything because she wasn't sure if she was just imagining things. We were all blown away by how the three of us were able to corroborate each other's experiences, and how it all made sense that Our Lady would gaze at BM with a look of approval after she taken the initiative to cleanse her soul in the confessional.

The left photo shows a picture of our Rosa Mystica statue, taken over two years

ago, as it normally appears... while the other photo was taken last night when the pupils

were witnessed to have shifted to the far right.  Not only do the eyes appear different, but

its face and chin also look rounder than the statue's normal appearance.

And what about the shape of the hairline?

So what happened with the photos I took of the statue? Well, when I finally had a chance to review them today, both appear to show the pupils of the statue shifted to the far right of both eyes - towards the direction where BM was sitting at the table. Not only did the eyes look to be different, but the shape of the statue's face appeared fuller and rounder than usual; its eye brows were slightly thicker and a different shape; and the hairline was higher and missing the drooping scallop-shape on both sides of the forehead. Everyone involved agreed that there were noticeable differences in the two photos and the statue appeared life-like in the picture taken last night, which testified to our entire group's occasional experiences of seeing the statue come to life during our meetings. 

Needless to say, we are all in awe over this latest development with the Rosa Mystica statue. Just when we thought we'd seen it all, Our Lady surprises us with a new manifestation; another tangible sign that just leads us to respect and appreciate, even more, her maternal role and special guidance in our prayer group's faith-life. Thank you, Blessed Mother!