Newspaper
Article entitled: Filipinos Flock to Glimpse Apparition of Mary-Published in the Sunday Tennessean on March 7th,
1993.
Agoo,
Philippines (AP)- Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims wailed, wept and prayed
yesterday under a blazing sun as they awaited an appearance by the Virgin Mary.
Only a handful claimed they saw an apparition.
Word of an expected apparition swept
the Philippines, Asia’s only predominately Catholic country, after a
12-year-old self-styled seer, Judiel Nieva, claimed to have seen the Virgin on
the first Saturday of every month since 1989.
Nieva’s family owns an image of Mary,
which was said to have shed tears of blood last month. Residents of Agoo, which
has a population of about 42,000, claim Nieva is a seer and that Communion
wafers and wine turn to flesh and blood in his mouth.
The Roman Catholic hierarchy has
reacted cautiously to the claims. Bishop Salvador Lazo of La Union province
said he would withhold judgment until a committee completes a study of the
boy’s claim.
Manila newspapers began reporting the
“miraculous events” in Agoo last week, and pilgrims began flocking to the town
on Friday, at one point creating a 70-mile-long traffic jam.
Belief in apparitions and
supernatural events runs deep in Philippine culture. Church congregations
throughout Luzon, the main Philippine island, chartered hundreds of buses for
the pilgrimage.
Government television claimed 1
million people gathered on seven hills outside this farming town 120 miles
north of Manila. Police estimated the crowd at 300,000.
Many of the pilgrims camped out
Friday night, and hotels as far as 30 miles away were booked.
Nieva had predicted an apparition by
yesterday afternoon, and anticipation gripped the throngs of believers.
About 1:15
p.m., several people began screaming that they had seen the silhouette of a
woman wearing a dark waistband.
Radio reporter Mon Francisco said he
had seen it. “I was not hallucinating,” he said over Manila radio station DZXL.
Others claimed to see the sun turn
color and dance in the sky. Many in the crowd wept and chanted prayers as the hours
past.
“I saw the sun coming out in
different colors,” cried a nearly hysterical Ching Dario, who had come from
Manila. “It was first coming down, then it went up again.”
In midafternoon, Nieva appeared on a
hillside, flanked by police who pushed aside weeping zealots who tried to touch
him. The boy claimed to have seen the Virgin, who asked Catholics to pray for
the children of famine-wracked Somalia.
“The
Blessed Virgin was very sad because of what is happening in Somalia,” the
boy told the crowd. “Do not be afraid my
children. The Rosary is the greatest weapon against Satan.”
He said the next apparition would be
on Sept. 8 and then “the Blessed Mother will disappear forever.”
