In the smoldering rubble of Rick and Tracy McGeagh’s Pacific Palisades home, a statue of Mary stands serene and unscathed amid mangled ruins.
Their son Jack, a psychologist, took many photos of their property after the catastrophic Jan. 7 fire that destroyed the entire community. There was much to weep over, but an image of the Blessed Mother moved the family to a different kind of tears: Mary prays near a charred tree reminiscent of the cross. High in the smoke-darkened sky, a bright sun casts a single beam of light toward the scene of devastation and of faith.
“It’s like Calvary Hill,” McGeagh said. “Mary is at the foot of the cross, as she was, and the sun is God, beaming down on them.”
He has shared the photo with everyone who contacted him to offer love and support.
“I find it a message of hope, that God is telling us that we are going to get through this as Mary did,” he said.
The fire was the second disaster that this statue of Mary has inexplicably survived. After the Northridge earthquake all but destroyed his grandmother’s Santa Monica home in 1994, the Blessed Mother remained on the patio when the family evacuated at 4 a.m.
“The home was red-tagged, but Mary survived,” he said.
The same grandmother had brought him to faith as a young adult. Though baptized Catholic, he had not been confirmed and had strayed in his youth. She prayed persistently for him and was his RCIA sponsor when he entered the Church in 1990 at age 27.
In 1998, the year after his grandmother’s death, McGeagh brought the statue to his young family’s new home in Pacific Palisades, placing her reverently in the garden. Twins Matthew and Jack and their sister, Mary, attended Corpus Christi School. McGeagh served on the pastoral advisory council for two decades.
The Corpus Christi church building was incinerated in the same fire that destroyed the McGeagh home.
McGeagh, a commercial real estate broker, intends to rebuild both his house and the church. He is grateful for good insurance and committed to both the neighborhood and the parish.
He trusts in Jesus and in the prayers of his mother.
“The fact that she survived, and our Viking stove melted is just a miracle to me,” he said.
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