Weeping Madonnas
Miraculous events and other apparitions relating to statues are generally common to the Catholic Church and statues of Mary, Mother of Jesus. Cultic devotion to Mary the virgin mother of Jesus can be observed in the second century. This somewhat follows the Catholic cult of the Saints, and beseeching the intercession of Saints for the living and the dead. In addition to Mary being claimed to have intercessry powers, it is also claimed that Mary works miracles for her devotees.
There has grown a strong tradition of apparitions featuring the Virgin Mary. The recipients of these apparitions are usually the humble poor, children and widows. The message of the Virgin is similar in all apparitions; she calls for repentance, turning away from the violence and materialism of the modern world, respect for the hierarchy of the Church, and the praying of the rosary.
In more recent times, the phenomena of weeping statues has emerged and flourished. The statues are seen to shed clear tears, or blood. Analysis of the blood frequently shows it to be human blood. In the event of phenomena like apparitions and weeping statues, the hierarchy has been extremely careful and demur from public endorsement of some apparitions and phenomena. Usually the investigation is carried out by the local Ordinary, the Bishop. In many of these cases, approval or endorsement is never forthcoming.
It is observed that all of these phenomena generally occur in an intense devotional environment.
Sai Baba says "I hear all your prayers to Mother Mary" to some people. Mary is the feminine divine in Christianity where devotion is concerned and devotion to Mary is devotion to the Divine. The Pope was seriously considering elevating her to co-redemptrix, that is, she is a sharer in the divine mission of her son to redeem humanity. Forgive the dogmatic language, but this is an accurate estimation of the strength of devotion in the orthodox and catholic Churches to Mary, Mother of God. In the last two centuries, devotion to Mary somewhat eclipsed devotion to Christ; that was because the faithful had devotedness, and Mary was human, mother, and many could identify with her. Around the1960's there was a change or movement from devotion to spirituality and many devotions were either actively discouraged, discarded, or simply neglected in light of pursuing a personal spirituality and focussing on the person of Christ the Redeemer.
Pope Paul the Sixth, (famed for encyclical which basically told families no pill, no contraception, etc, etc, ) wrote an encyclical called Cultus Marialis, where he deftly outlined the excesses of devotion to Mary, situated her in relation to Jesus, and encouraged a Christ-centered devotion to Mary as Mother of the Redeemer, and like titles. It was an attempt to strongly persuade the faithful to move from devotion to a bible-based spirituality of Mary. Cultus Marialis is worth a read as it will quite accurately paint a picture of where the Church was focussed at a particular point in the last century. It's a long read, full of dogmatic statements and I admit, it may be quite foreign territory to you.
"Spirituality" presented much opportunity for Christians to take up their personal relationship with God, Jesus, Mary and the Saints in a way that was personally satisfying and put responsibility for that relationship firmly in the hands of the individual Christian. However, as a substitute for devotion, it was a catastrophe. Devotional practices particularly in Catholicism simply became passé and those who practised it were seen as out of step with the church in the modern world. There were some strong pockets of devotion here and there, but those pockets were either eclipsed by changes in ritual, or simply lost in protest against changes in rituals. That's another chapter.
To wrap up on Mary, John Paul II has this simple, large M on the shield in his coat of arms, upsetting all the heraldry boffins and whatnot, for Mary. He was devoted, devoted, devoted to Mary. The other issue is that he recently gave 5 new mysteries of the Rosary to the Church, the Mysteries of Light. I find that interesting, he called these 'luminous' mysteries.
Unfortunately, to me, Christians seem to be perpetually defensive about one thing or another and practice rituals with fervour and devotion. Very few get past the need for the rituals. It seems to me that the Church points to the great mystics and saints of the past as role models, but then tells people in the modern era that these great heights attained by the saints can be reached only by a very few. Some time ago, the Church issued one instruction which cast aspersions on Meditation; a more recent instruction dismisses the New Age.
Weeping Madonna's are a good thing. I recall that TS Eliot poem about the Crucifixion, mentions that the "very halt and lame" even got up the hill to jeer at the crucified. Well, they will also jeer at the Weeping Madonna's. We will always have these demons around, pointing fingers and casting stones. In 1995, Photographs, Brass and wooden idols in Hinduism drank milk a few years ago, on one fantastic day, and the scoffers were there as well.
There is something divine at work here, and often, if the miraculous is allowed to be what it is, just that, miraculous. Rudolph Otto wrote that philosophical tome "The Idea of the Holy" and he took religious or divine experience and did what philosophers do and came up with 'numinous', which he derived from 'ominous'. Ominous comes from omen has elements of awe, overpoweringness, a mystery uncontrollable with unknown elements of terror and horror that the mind cannot fathom. Otto took this and applied it to numen. Numen has two components, mysterium and tremendum.
He presents the tremendum component of the numinous that is being experienced as comprising three elements: awfulness (inspiring awe, a sort of profound unease), overpoweringness (that which, among other things, inspires a feeling of humility), energy (creating an impression of immense vigour).
The mysterium component in its turn has two elements. Firstly, the numinous is experienced as 'wholly other.' It is something truly amazing, as being totally outside our normal experience. Secondly, here is the element of fascination, which causes the subject of the experience of the numinous to be caught up in it, to be enraptured. To read a current item, (November 2003) The Hindu Milk miracle is still happening. Read about the crowds going here
This mysterium tremendum can be found at work in the media, in bad news, in all the old gothic horror novels, and more so recently in horror movies. Horror and mystery work well, along with signature music. Think of that movie JAWS. Fascination is something the mind cannot let go of; it pulls the mind in, inexorably, like a tractor beam, right into the tremendum component. Think of that UFO movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Note that they all kneel in front of inexpressible, non-understandable mystery of a spacecraft appearing in the sky.
It was the noted Swiss Psychologist, Carl Gustav Jung, who both predicted and observed the increasing phenomena of UFO's. In his book Memories, Dreams and Reflections, Jung said that as mankind was increasingly discarding the divine, there would be more and more UFO phenomena. Bon Giovanni of the USA narrates one such story about Sai Baba and the explanation regarding UFO's, and proceeds to deconstruct the story vis-a-vis the human need for the divine. The following story originally appeared in the Sandeha Nivarini thread in alt.religion.
Swami had taken a group of students and two elders out to a forest reserve, wild animals you know, and all had sat down for tiffen, seated in a horseshoe around Baba at the centre of the group. A student keen on such things then asked Swami why he had told differing accounts to people about UFO's, since he really wanted to know if they were or were not real. Swami looked at the young man and started to answer, but at that moment in the field behind him, in broad daylight, a UFO appeared and just hovered there in the sky above the group. Not even looking back behind him, Baba calmly said "UFO's are just imagination", and the craft vanished.
Since that is important for you, as you say, then perhaps as you find`contradictions' in what Swami says, I suggest you examine very, very, very carefully why it bothers you, and see what happens. "Could be." I truly no longer harbour such thoughts, and so cannot answer you. You see, Swami does extraordinary things. Sometimes he does such miracles that the mind simply caves in, and at other times he does such clumsy sleight of hand tricks you think that he must think you are a fool if he expects you to fall for it. Why does he do that? Why does he contradict himself? Why is he so damnably undefinable? My hunch is that he does whatever is appropriate to further the insight of the individual present before him, no matter if that somehow makes the person think "of" him as a fraud or a god. He really does not care what one thinks of him, you see. At least that is my experience. Just when I think I have Swami pegged, he does something outside my comprehension. When doubt overwhelms me, I later discover why I have learned just as much from that process as when wisdom overwhelms me.
Conclusion
There are two sides to this mysterium coin; there is the mystery of the divine, and the mystery of the unknown, generally portrayed as horrible, horror, unknowable blackness emerging from a black hole. One can clearly identify the concept of grue and gruesome and its tractor-bean effect on those who watch horror movies. The same principle draws crowds to sites of miracles and apparitions. Due the prevalence of scoffing at Christianity and its phenomena, this is frequently dismissed with simple explanations. Does the divine communicate and provide phenomena outside the known scope of the mind and human experience in order to draw those observers to itself? We think so.
Weeping Madonna's attract people using exactly the same principle; its humanity's constant response to any matter greater than the human mind. It evokes devotion; it reaches down to the heart and taps forgotten memories of childhood and rosaries, Holy Cards and candles. Lourdes, Medjugorje, Guadalupe, Fatima, Knock, all these places attract pilgrims where Mary has been appearing. Glimpses of the numinious, faith healings, crutches and wheelchairs left behind, all these things add up to a recovery of devotion in the modern age.
Sai Baba himself says that he has come to foster devotion. Sai Baba does not ask that you change religions to following Sai Baba; indeed he asks that a Hindu become a better Hindu, a Christian become a better Christian, and so forth. Sai Baba gives gifts to his devotees with images of the divines in different religions. He materialises vibhuti, which signfies the cessation suffering and desire; he materialises rosary beads, chains, medallions and rings with images of different divines on them. All this is to foster devotion in the heart of the adherent, something which is an integral part of his mission.