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In St Mary’s
Basilica, a place of worship dedicated to ‘Our Lady of Health’
in Bangalore, India, there exists a revered wooden statue of the
Virgin Mary. An unusual story surrounds this relatively small
artifact.
Once, it was the custom
to parade the image of the Virgin Mary through the city streets in
the performance of a religious ritual. On one occasion a radical
sect decided to stone the procession and hopefully destroy the statue
at the same time. This destruction did not take place but instead,
oddly enough, the majority of those who indulged in this nefarious
activity were soon stricken with cholera, most of the them dying from
the disease.
Later, the church itself
was attacked and burnt to the ground; everything but the wooden
statue being destroyed in the blaze. The iron remains today situated
in a glass case in the Basilica; an object of deep veneration.
An additional, but larger
statue of the Virgin Mother stands in a small chapel to the side of
the main entrance. This figure is given homage by all creeds,
Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jain and Buddhist.
It was decided at one
stage to have the statue removed to another section of the church and
according to my interview with several church fathers, this action
became impossible. The figure could not be physically removed from
its place of rest and remains still in its original setting. The
church, founded by the Abbe Dubois in 1813, was relegated to the
distinction of a minor Basilica following these ‘miraculous’
events.
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