Worshippers of a church in Las Vegas, Nevada believe they witnessed a true miracle during a holiday mass.

Father Edmund Nnadozie was preaching at St Thomas More during the celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe when the congregation erupted, claiming they saw a face appear in the wrinkles of fabric near the altar.

The cloth had been draped over a pedestal holding a statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The feast is celebrated on December 12. 

Parishioners captured images showing the fabric later wrinkling into what they all believed was a shape resembling a human face.

Ben Yzaguirre, who attended that mass, photographed the phenomenon and told local Fox5 Vegas: 'I believe it's a miracle, a sign from heaven. It's beautiful to see, and I'm glad I was able to be a part of that.'

Images of the face have flooded social media, where other worshippers who attended the mass echoed Yzaguirre's statements.

'I was there at this Mass. Miracles happen,' one user shared on X.  While others were quick to dismiss it, saying the worshippers experienced pareidolia, the tendency to see faces in random patterns or groups of objects.

However, Nnadozie told the local news outlet that the timing of the image makes the incident difficult to dismiss as a coincidence. 

'I looked at it, I'm like, 'Oh, wait a minute,' I looked at it again, and that was the face of, you know, it's Our Lady,' Nnadozie said, saying there were 800 people there and no one touched the fabric.

The story of Our Lady of Guadalupe begins in 1531 when the Virgin Mary was said to have appeared to an indigenous man named Juan Diego on Tepeyac Hill, near modern-day Mexico City. She requested that a church be built on the site in her honor. 

To convince the skeptical bishop, Juan Diego gathered roses in his tilma, a simple cloak, despite it being winter when no flowers normally bloomed. 

When he opened the tilma before the bishop, the roses fell to the floor, and an image of the Virgin Mary miraculously appeared on the fabric.

The tilma, which is still preserved today in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, has long been venerated by millions of Catholics worldwide. 

Scientists and historians have marveled at the image, noting that the cloth has lasted nearly 500 years with no significant deterioration, and the exact method of its creation remains a mystery.

For worshippers in Las Vegas, the appearance of a face on a cloth during the holiday mass echoes this centuries-old miracle, inspiring devotion and sparking conversation about faith, wonder, and the enduring power of the Virgin's image.

Nnadozie told Fox5 Vegas: ''I think maybe Our Lady was sending a message to us, 'Hey, I'm still around, I know today is a celebration of my day, and I can still show myself.

'God chooses when a miracle happens, and a miracle can happen in Las Vegas.'

Yzaguirre said the experience resonates even with those who were not present at the mass.

'Sometimes the world or the community needs these things as well, and it's not just for us to keep to ourselves,' he said. 

In 2018, a church in Mexico claimed to have experienced a miracle when it found a 'weeping' Virgin Mary statue that was leaking olive oil.

A sample of fluid was taken from the statue, located at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in Hobbs, and sent for a chemical analysis.

'And we determined it was olive oil, a scented olive oil,' Bishop Oscar Cantú told the Las Cruces Sun News.

'Some of the witnesses claimed it smelled of roses, so something similar to the oil I bless and consecrate each year that we use for baptism, for confirmations, and for ordination of the priests.' 

Church leaders looked at the possibility that something from inside the statue was causing the leak.

'We examined the interior of the hollow statue,' Cantú added. 'There's nothing on the interior that's not supposed to be there, except for cobwebs. So we took pictures; we examined it.'

Church officials looked to the Mexican manufacturers to see if there was any fluid that could have lingered from the building process. Wax was found to be used in the process, but it is 'so hot that all of the wax melts away,' Cantú asserted.

He said: 'In that process, they assured us there would be no possibility of any moisture remaining in the bronze. So those are some of the facts that we have established.'