THE owner of a religious picture hanging in her peninsula home says it is weeping tiny drops of oil.

Julie Zammit, 82, initially noticed the drops appear on the picture of St Mary MacKillop in 2007.

Now she says two new drops of oil have appeared.

“I never touch the picture so this happens by itself,” the Dromana woman said.

“It’s a strange thing.”

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Ms Zammit said the new drops appeared on St Mary’s eyebrow and veil.

“I cannot explain it. I don’t know what it means,” she said.

Ms Zammit houses a shrine of notable saints and popes, as well as flowers and candles, against a wall in her living room.

The oil droplets also appear on the wall directly surrounding the St Mary MacKillop picture but are absent from any other areas of the wall or the shrine.

The picture was a gift to Ms Zammit about 20 years ago by nuns from St James’ Church in Richmond.

Ms Zammit has reported the events to her local priest but he could not explain it.

Professor of historical theology at Trinity College in the University of Melbourne Andrew McGowan said even though critics tended to be sceptical of religious phenomena, there werealso cases where occurrences could not always be explained.

“It’s common for people to interpret a phenomenon based on their broader world view or where they’re at in their lives personally and existentially,” he said.

“People do bring with them their sense of the world, which is inevitably going to affect the way that they perceive it. Therefore, it can be very subjective.”

Prof McGowan said, in some cases, there could be cultural expectations attached to certaintypes of phenomena, with cases of weeping and bleeding statues or paintingspreviously linked to Christian and Catholic religions.