apparition

He noted that the 1978 norms identified plenty of reasons for proceeding carefully, such as whether the purported message received during the apparition contradicted the faith or whether the person claiming it had an economic interest in drawing believers in.

The Vatican has generally refrained from intervening, leaving it in the hands of local bishops and offering its approval to fewer than 20 reported apparitions over several centuries, according to Michael O’Neill, who runs the online apparition resource The Miracle Hunter.

Least expensive: “A Polaroid of an apparition of the Virgin Mary in a glass structure in Clearwater, Fla. I got it on eBay for $7.”

Now Van Cleef & Arpels is unveiling its latest take on that tradition: In his workshop among the mountains of Sainte-Croix, Switzerland, François Junod, a craftsman in his mid-60s who has devoted his life to making automatons, has been working for the past two and a half years on Apparition des Baies, a showstopping new piece for the Paris-based jewelry house.

My mother’s grave is within eyesight of a big statue of the Santo Niño de Atocha, an apparition of the infant Jesus omnipresent in the lives of people from the state of Zacatecas, where she was born.