This Houston phenomenon is the latest in a rash of claims involving the Virgin of Guadalupe. That same year, thousands of people began to gather in the Mojave Desert to watch Maria Paula Acuna supposedly commune with the Virgin. A Florida office building attracted thousands of worshippers when people claimed that they saw the outline of the Virgin in panes of glass. No one has explained why divine personalities would choose such unusual venues to reveal themselves. Social scientists like anthropologist Charles Nuckolls of Emory University, though, compare these apparitions to events in Hindu societies where statues of deities are said to bleed or give forth a milky substance in a miraculous fashion.
Religion can do that.
Many who visit the scenes of such apparitions and believe often attach an apocalyptic message to the event. Thousands have joined the Bayside Movement, which coalesced around a New York woman, Veronica Leuken, who claimed to have regular visitations and messages from the Virgin Mary. Religion can do that. These events often leave church authorities in an awkward position. Church officials have asked the flock to ignore the Bayside Movement, but such groups nevertheless seem to attract a large following.