Cardboard Christ 'cries'
2004-05-12 12:32
Robstown, Texas - Religious pilgrims have come by the hundreds to the Coastal Bend town of Robstown, Texas, for a glimpse of a picture of Jesus they say is weeping.
The cardboard print is in a small living room of Gloria Fino's wood-frame house.
The 34-year-old Roman Catholic dabs cotton balls against two streams of an oily substance that trickle from the outside corners of the image's eyes. She gives them to visitors.
The oily liquid, which has run in streaks from the two eyes, or tracks of tears, seemed to produce the same effect in some who saw it.
The liquid then hardens into a wax-like substance.
The pilgrims are told the tears are in response to Fino's prayers for her three-month-old grandson, who was born with his internal organs outside his body. The boy is in hospital in Houston, and Fino says doctors' reports have not been encouraging.
Gloria Fino says she was praying for her grandson on Friday night when a tear fell on her Bible. "I heard a noise and I looked up and noticed a tear in his eye, and it's been coming since Friday at 11:30."
She told the local newspaper, the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, that the droplets began to flow at 23:30 on Friday.
The Roman Catholic Church has not yet investigated the claims.