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Irish Catholics flocking to tree stump; They claim it looks like Mary
Topic Started: Jul 12 2009, 11:27 AM (575 Views)
ngc1514
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090709/ap_on_re_eu/eu_ireland_holy_stump
Quote:
 
DUBLIN – Thousands of Irish Catholics have flocked this week to a County Limerick church to pray at the stump of a recently cut willow that many observers say, has the silhouette of the Virgin Mary.

The phenomenon at St. Mary's parish church in Rathkeale, population 3,000 or so, harkens back to decades when Catholic devotion and pilgrimages were the dominant feature of rural life in Ireland.

Some are tying the fervor for Rathkeale's "Holy Stump" to Ireland's stunning economic decline over the past year.

"People have been crying out for something good to happen. And this is all good for the soul," said Noel White, who has been overseeing a church project to cut down trees dangerously overhanging the neighboring school playground.

Tree stumps looking like Mary, grilled cheese sandwiches that look also like Mary, the visage of Jesus seen in a plate of pasta.

Doesn't anyone ever consider that our representational image of Mary and Jesus isn't what they actually looked like (assuming they existed at all), but how they were thought to appear by paleo-Christians, Medieval iconographers and Renaissance painters. The Images of Jesus site at http://www.religionfacts.com/jesus/image_gallery.htm presents a fair representation of how Jesus has been seen by artists over the centuries - none of which look like a tree stump or a face in a plate of spaghetti.

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retired
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If it makes people happy and jubilant to see images of the Holy people they believe in and don't force others to do the same so what.
No one should be either forced to believe in religion or laughed at for getting a bit carried away in grasping at images. :angel:
Ya never know what comes after the dirt nap.
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ngc1514
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I was just pointing out that the images these people see are resemblences to the images in paintings by the like of Fra Angelico, Masaccio and Bellini. It would be far more accurate for those people to say the tree trunk or spaghetti visage looks like Christ as he appears in Fra Angelico's "The Entombment of Christ" in the National Gallery of Art in Washington than claiming it to be an image of Christ.

But, you are correct. Thousands flock to supposed sites of UFO activity here in the US. I see very little difference between both activities.

But that's just me.
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Mike
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I believe in miracles. I doubt God uses toast or tree stumps as a medium to display His image.

But then again, I would never suggest to understand or limit in any manner His ways.
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ngc1514
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Hey.. surely thousands of Irish Catholics can't be wrong, can they?
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