SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (RNS) Nine months ago, a man praying on behalf of his cancer-stricken mother glanced up from a Mercy Medical Center parking lot and saw what he believed was an image of the Virgin Mary.
She was looking down on him from an office window.
Word of the apparition spread quickly, and hundreds of faithful soon gathered in the parking lot, reciting the rosary and building a makeshift shrine of flowers and votive candles which grew to the size of a car.
Now, the image window is in a cushioned crate at a secret storage location, and Mercy Medical Center, a Catholic institution operated by the Sisters of Providence Health System, is still trying to figure out what to do with it.
Is the window worthy of such veneration? If so, where is the best place to put it?
Mark M. Fulco, Mercy’s vice president of strategy and marketing, said he expects to have a decision within a few months. Engineers and other experts examined the window before and after its removal from the building, he said.
Mercy is awaiting a final report from the experts, according to Fulco. He declined to identify them in order to spare them unwanted attention.
Before the window was removed, engineering experts said the image was caused by mineral deposits between panes of glass, the result of a failed rubber seal. But, as hospital officials said at the time, this theory did not explain why the streaks of color produced an image resembling the Virgin Mary.
Before the appearance of the apparition, Mercy had planned to remove the window as part of a renovation project. It would have been taken out before the image was sighted, but its replacement was the wrong size.