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ARTESIA, Calif. - For more than a year believers have flocked to a sidewalk outside a catholic church in Artesia. They're looking down at the ground-- for a sign from the heavens.
Traffic pylons and a ring of flowers keep pedestrians away from a puddle in front of the Holy Family Catholic Church in Artesia. Squint and you might see the silhouette of the Virgin of Guadalupe.
Other days, the image is more distinct.
“If you take a photograph, it has a certain clarity, a universal picture which everyone can identify with,” says Father John Cordero.
The days parishioner Nancy Pinto comes to church, she’ll take a look and say a little prayer to the lady. She admitted on this day, the splotch on the sidewalk did not look like much like the Virgin Mary.
“Every day when I come to church I pass, sometimes it’s blue, blue,” said Pinto.
Blue like this depiction of the Virgin Mary as it’s believed she looked when she appeared before Juan Diego in Mexico on December 12, 1531. Now December 12 is celebrated as Lady of Guadalupe Day. It’s that day, one year ago, believers claim she first appeared on the sidewalk in Artesia.
This year, on December 12 a man noticed a different image on the sidewalk about 10 feet away.
Some parishioners saw the Virgin again and laid out roses… but a week later, the sidewalk was bare and not protected. Father John says, parishioners did not connect with this splotch the way they had to the original.