Mojave High Desert / Our Lady of the Rock
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 of 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.
"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".
"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."
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."
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 of 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.
"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".
"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."
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."
38 photos
·
3,014 views