IMAGE DRAWS FAITHFUL

Soledad residents celebrate what they see as Christmas miracle

By CLAUDIA MELƒNDEZ SALINAS

Herald Salinas Bureau

Behold the Soledad maple tree, where hundreds of believers are being drawn to contemplate the image of the Virgin Mary, the mother of God in the Catholic tradition, cast on its trunk with the help of light and shadows.

Word has spread fast in this growing town that the Madonna has appeared on a 50-year-old tree on Ticino Street, and hundreds are flocking to see the image, to pray or to satisfy their curiosity.

"When I came this morning, I could only see her face," said 12-year-old Selena Garza, a sixth-grader at Frank Ledesma Elementary School. "Now I see the baby and the baby's feet."

A bulge on the tree's stem cast a shadow that resembles the bowed head of the Madonna and her mantle as depicted in some images.

But some of the onlookers see a lot more than a head: they see the Virgin's son, Baby Jesus, as if he were hugging her by the waist, his feet dangling. Some see her dressed in a white tunic that flows all the way to the ground.

Some have come to place flowers at the base of the tree, to light candles, to hang rosaries from its twigs, and many say her presence has a larger meaning.

"We have to be prepared," said Teresa Garza, a Soledad resident who learned about the apparition when her daughter sent her a text message. She drove to Ticino Street right away. "We have to be ready because all of us one day are going to bow to her knees."

No one knows how long the Madonna has been waiting on the maple tree to be discovered, but on Thursday, as Susana Jimenez and her daughters Deanna and Michelle were coming back from Salinas, Deanna noticed something different on a trunk she has seen many times in the past.

"We went by and noticed the tree looked different," said Deanna, a 14-year-old freshman at Soledad High. "We went back again, and then we saw her."

At first, the devout Catholic women didn't tell anybody what they'd witnessed. But they went back a a few more times, and on Saturday, they brought some relatives and friends by the tree, without announcing what the trip was about.

"They saw it right away," Susana Jimenez said. "They got out (of the car) to touch the tree, and from then on, everybody knew."

Word of the Madonna's visit spread like pollen on a windy Soledad day, and by Sunday evening, hundreds of people were gathering near the maple tree, which has been losing its leaves steadily since the fall arrived.

"It has to do with the season," said Michelle, 17, who explained that it's hard to see that part of the trunk when the tree is covered with leaves.

On Monday, hundreds of people congregated near the miraculous maple to see the image, to recite the Rosary or take pictures with their cell phones.

Sixteen-year-old Martha Hernandez held out her camera and snapped a picture of the Madonna. A ghostly image remained imprinted on the tiny screen.

"She's there," she said excitedly, as her friends passed around her phone to take a look.

Sightings of the Madonna are one of the most common apparitions among believers in the Roman Catholic Church since the 11th century. Some, like the apparitions of Guadalupe in Mexico and Fatima in Portugal, have transformed the sites where they were seen into gigantic centers of pilgrimage.

The apparition in Soledad comes on the heels of news that a chunk of chocolate in the likeness of the Virgin was discovered last summer by a worker in a Southern California candy factory.

Religious icons have been perceived in bricks, logs, pastries, smudges on freeway underpasses, stains on plaster walls and water tanks, on a grilled cheese sandwich and in the scorch marks of a tortilla, among others. The most recent and popular apparition of the Virgin on a tree took place about 10 years ago at Pinto Lake near Watsonville.

And even though there were hundreds of believers among the curious onlookers Monday, there was at least one young man who didn't believe in the apparition.

"It's just a tree," said Alfredo Zavala, 18. "People are making a big deal out of it."

But there are a lot more believers than skeptics, and to those, Soledad resident Guadalupe Razo wants to tell them to back off.

"We have to be respectful," she said. "If they respect my religion, I'll respect their beliefs."

The Jimenez family believes the image may disappear when the spring comes and new leaves grow on the tree. And that's OK by them.

"Maybe the image will leave, but the spirit will stay," Michelle said. "And after she does leave... her message will have spread, and she doesn't have to be here anymore."