There certainly have been some very strange events in the mystical history of the Church.
Was one an outright fraud?
It's what is claimed for a case in Lomello, Italy, where a plaster statue of the Madonna was seen to be weeping tears of different colors during the summer of 1980.
That's a twist -- colored ones -- although it is claimed that the statue's owner was seen squirting pinkish water on it with his son's water pistol.
It's rare -- much more so than skeptics purvey -- but fraud does exist. In 1986, a statue of Mary in Ste-Marthe-Sur-Le-Lac, Quebec, claimed to have shed blood, sweat, and tears was forbidden from public display after the owner reportedly admitted smearing it with oil and his own blood. Scientists said they found it was coated with pork and beef fat that would liquefy in droplets and run like tears once the room slightly warmed.
Of course, the color red -- if by that one means blood -- has been reported on numerous occasions, in more credible circumstances. Staying in Italy: in the winter of 1971, a lawyer in Maropati woke only to find that a painting of Mary over his bed dripping reddish fluids. Blood spots were also noted on his pillowcases. Today [12/14] is the feast day of John of the Cross, who said the first test of mysticism is to resist it and see if despite such efforts, it remains luculent; it stays.
"After the blood spots appeared a few more times, I was dumbfounded to discover that they were dripping from under the glass of the painting," he said. "The bloodlike liquid was coming from the Madonna's eyes like tears, and from her heart, hands, and feet. It was also dripping from the hands and feet of the two saints kneeling beside her. Some of the liquid began to form crosses on the white wall below the painting."
Which, if true, is another new twist.
An analysis showed the fluid to be human blood -- what type, we have not learned. It continued at least into 1975.
In Granada, Spain, a statue of Mary likewise shed tears of blood and Mary is said to have told a "seer" (Rosario): "It is not my blood, it is the blood of the world."
The blood of the world?
(Something upon which to cogitate).
In certain cases, blood clots materialize on pictures or statues in a way so unsightly it gives one great pause. One must remember that what God does, Satan can mimic (as he seeks to mock, confuse, imbue, or contaminate).
Or an image (as below, produced when blood splashed from the reputed stigmatic, Sister Elena Aiello of Cosenza) seems -- let us say -- unusual (and bearing little resemblance to a holy image). This is not to doubt her devotion nor necessarily all her phenomena. But there can be contamination. Most mystics are a mix.
And so it is that we: discern -- that we look before leaping. In every walk of life, our time is a time of unusual deception.
[resources: In Sinu Jesu, A Life of Blessings and The Seven]