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OUR LADY OF THE ROCK
Since 1989, the Virgin Mary has allegedly appeared in the Mojave Desert, California City, California to a woman called Maria Paula Acuna.
Maria Paula is the mother of six children, one of which had become ill with leukemia. The child, who was in critical condition, one day had a vision of a beautiful lady who asked her to tell her mother, to visit the mountain at Lopez Canyon in the Mojave desert. After visiting the place several times, on July 24, 1989 at 5:00 in the morning, Maria Paula was suddenly covered by a white fog.
In the middle of this white curtain a lady
in white clothing, standing on a cloud, with a great rosary in her hands
appeared. She said: "I am the Lady of the Rock, Queen of Peace of Southern
California. I come to bring you the peace and love that is so needed."
Since then Maria Paula has received a new
message from the Virgin Mary on the 13 of every month.
The location, which soon became a well-known
place of pilgrimage, is visited by thousands on the 13 of every month.
It is believed that the Virgin Mary then appears in the sky and can be
captured on film.
People therefore bring their cameras, especially
Polaroid- and video cameras are popular as the result can then be seen
and shown to others immediately after taking the picture.
Blessed Virgin Mary Sightings in California City, Mojave Desert, California
Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 19:38:22 -0800
Subject: Blessed Virgin Mary Sightings in
Mojave Desert
(Los Angeles Times, Feb 16, 1997)
California Album: Waiting For Mary
Hundreds gather in the Mojave Desert on the
13th of each month to watch for
the mother of Jesus. Almost as eagerly awaited
is Maria Paula Acuna, who
says she sees the Virgin with regularity.
By CARLA HALL
and PAULA BRYANT PRATT
SPECIAL TO THE TIMES
CALIFORNIA CITY, Calif.-They come with lawn
chairs, rosaries and religious
pictures to this stark, scrubby desert. Polaroid
is the camera of
choice--the better to see immediately if the
Virgin Mary has appeared in
the sky and allowed herself to be captured
in some earthly form, if only on
film.
Under a sunny, cloudless sky, they are bundled
against the chill of the
desert wind as they pray in a circle near
two huge white crosses. They hope
to see Mary, but at the moment they are eagerly
awaiting Maria Paula Acuna,
a 45-year-old Catholic woman from California
City who comes on the 13th of
each month to this site--now christened Our
Lady of the Rock--and declares
that Mary is in their midst.
Whether it's rainy or sunny, a throng gathers.
On weekends, it can number
1,000 or more. On Thursday, the crowd is 300
strong, and two vendors are
selling rosaries, religious-themed jewelry
and an Automatic Miracle Fold
self-opening umbrella.
The faithful are veterans of this Mojave Desert
trek and neophytes,
predominantly Catholic and mostly Latino.
They tote stacks of snapshots
taken of the sky over the course of their
visits and compare them like
collectors at a baseball card show.
Some are part of the Marian movement--devotees
of Mary--who travel to sites
around the world renowned for visitations
by Mary. But most are Southern
Californians who simply believe that something--something
blessed--happens
under this desert sky on the 13th df each
month.
"See, it's the Virgin," says Lissette Sandoval,
41, cradling a snapshot she
took just before Acuna's arrival. She points
to a vaguely diamond-shaped
smudge of white light.
Maybe you could construe it to be the shape
of a veiled and robed Mary in
her traditional pose with outstretched arms.
Suggestions that photographing
the sun will result in odd shapes and blips
of light carry as much weight
here as any earthly apparition of Mary does.
Only Acuna claims to see the mother of Jesus
with regularity and incredible
clarity.
"The Blessed Mary always appears around 10,
10:30, 11, something like
that," Acuna had explained over the phone
Wednesday, the day before the
13th. "She looks like a big ray of light coming
from the sky very slowly
and then she appears in front of me. She looks
like a cloud. I see her very
clearly. She's a very beautiful woman, very
young.. Maybe 18 years old.
About 5'5".
Local Catholic authorities have officially-if
gently-suggested that there
is no Mary there.
"The church's official position is that there
are no apparitions, and
people are to be discouraged from going there,"
said Father Gregory Coiro
of the Roman Catholic' archdiocese of Los
Angeles, which spent more than a
year investigating the desert case. "It was
looked into and found to be
wanting. It was found to be due to somebody's
imagination-not anyone's bad
will."
The diocese in Fresno, which has immediate
authority over California City,
has concurred with Los Angeles officials.
But it has placed no restrictions
on people gathering at the unpaved site about
10 miles northeast of
California City.
Not that the devotees care about such pronouncements.
They have their own
research. They talk of the time when rose
petals fell from the sky as Acuna
prayed-- and then mystically rose back into
the sky. They remember when a
rainbow appeared around the sun.
Maria Morales, 34, brings her 3-year-old daughter
outfitted in a little
blue cape and white gown like a miniature
statue of Mary. Morales says that
Acuna's prayers healed her daughter's dislocated
hip.
"I made: a promise to the Virgin Mary that
I would dress her up as soon as
she was healed," she says.
On this Thursday morning, Evelyn Velasquez,
23, waits for Acuna to arrive.
"There will be a moment when she says,'Take
the picture,' and everyone will
go crazy with their cameras," she says. "But
if you don't believe it, you
won't see it."
Acuna says she doesn't know why she started
coming to the desert on the
13th of each month, but suggests that there
is some history of Mary
appearing on that day.
In one of the most famous religious sightings
of the century, a woman
standing on a cloud reportedly appeared to
three children on May 13, 1917,
in Fatima, Portugal. She told them to return
to that spot on the 13th of
each month until October when she appeared
and told the children that she
was the Virgin Mary.
When Acuna arrives, smiling and waving from
a teal Dodge Grand Caravan, she
is a dark-haired woman, swathed in white veil,
white gown and white gym
shoes. She is attended by white-clad volunteers.
A group of children in white robes follows
a procession of men carrying a
statue of Mary surrounded by a bed of plastic
roses. They walk slowly to a
table on a small makeshift platform.
After one of Acuna's aides leads the group
in a hymn, Acuna walks to the
center of the circle her audience has made.
They fall silent as she
clutches a microphone and recites the "Hail
Mary" in English and then prays
in Spanish.
Softly she says in Spanish, "Our Mother is
with us," and suddenly the air
is filled with the whir of polaroid cameras
snapping directly at the sun.
Those without cameras look toward the sky,
hands draped in rosaries
shielding eyes from the bright sun. All that
is visible to the naked eye is
a trail of vapor from jets flying out of nearby
Edwards Air Force Base.
"The light of the Blessed Mother looks like
a crown and covers all the
people here," she says in English before launching
into something of a
sermon--a lament for the homeless that leaves
her and some of her listeners
in tears.
After the prayers have been said and photos
snapped, Acuna works the crowd,
listening to people's problems, laying her
hands on their heads as she
prays, laughing and smiling with those who
bring her good news. She is
trailed by a volunteer in white who carries
a bottle of holy water and a
tin of holy oil for Acuna's use.
Seven years ago, Acuna says, she had her first
vision when she went to pray
in Lopez Canyon near her home in Pacoima.
She went back repeatedly,
bringing with her bigger and bigger crowds
of people until the owners of
the property complained.
"That was private property in Lopez Canyon,"
says one of her aides who
declined to give his full name. "The Blessed
Mother told her the desert is
wide, so she came here."
As the morning turns to afternoon, people search
their snapshots for images
of the Virgin Mary. "I can't say I've stood
here and looked up and seen
her," admits first-time attendee Jodi Kepler
from Tehachapi.
"But I feel like she's here. I'm for anything that has a positive effect."
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