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FORTY FORT — When Florence Eckert woke up Thursday morning, she was dismayed to see that rain-soaked earth and a strong wind had apparently combined to topple a large portion of the stone grotto that had sheltered a statue of the Blessed Mother in her backyard for years.
But when she looked more closely, she was amazed to see that the statue itself, a white figure she had cherished for decades, was unmarred and unblemished.
“It’s like a miracle,” she said. “The rocks had projected out over the statue. If they had fallen straight down, the way you’d expect them to fall, they would have crushed her.”
Eckert sees the way the statue was protected from harm as a validation of the Blessed Mother’s message, which many people believe was revealed through apparitions to three young shepherds in Fatima, Portugal, 100 years ago.
“She came down from her place in heaven to warn us,” Eckert said. “We have to pray and mend our ways.”
The statue was spared during the week of Sept. 8, the day the Catholic church has designated on its calendar as the Virgin Mary’s birthday.
When she was younger and more active, Eckert said, she would host birthday parties for Mary on this date — complete with friends, relatives and cake.
She also traveled extensively year-round to speak at churches, schools and other gathering spots, encouraging individuals to pray the rosary and wear a scapular as part of the “Blue Army” of people devoted to the Virgin Mary.
“Once when I was speaking at the Hotel Sterling, so many people came that the ladies who worked there had to dust off chairs they brought up from the basement.”
Eckert has owned the statue since sometime in the 1960s, when she and her first husband, Harold Eckert, were driving home from a trip to Coney Island with their three children. She spotted it at a roadside stand, and knew it was just the kind of statue she wanted.
Her husband crossed a four-lane highway on foot to pick it up, and a police officer held back traffic. Eckert talks about that crossing of the highway as if it, too, was a miracle.
Whether or not this week’s event was a miracle, it gave Eckert a reason to call a newsroom, suggest a story and spread her message that people should pay more attention to spiritual matters and find the comfort she does in prayer and meditation.
Her second husband, Charles Reina, supports her recommendation.
“I do believe the Lord speaks to you, sometimes,” he said.
