SUBANG JAYA: Catholics are flocking to a Malaysian church to see a statue of the Virgin Mary which parishioners claim is growing taller.

Witnesses claim the statue, which stands at the Church of St Thomas in the city of Subang Jaya, has grown three inches, smiled and shed tears as people watched on, Straits Times reports. In a three-minute video uploaded to WhatsApp taken during Sunday Mass, a parishioner addressed the congregation and explained his experience with the Our Lady of Fatima statue, describing it as a “miracle”.

“Her eyes were moving very slowly, all of us were there and we saw it,” he said. “(Father Raymond Pereira) was saying, ‘Look at her, she’s looking at us’, she was full of life, she had a lot of tears in her eyes.”

The parish priest claims to have spoken to the Virgin Mary statue.

The parishioner said Father Pereira claimed to have spoken to the statue.

“The father had told us that he actually spoke to her,” he said.

“She will more often, she also told father that she wants all of us to pray to her.”

After the polyresin statue was blessed on Wednesday, Father Pereira claimed it had suddenly turned to porcelain and had grown 7.2cm taller.

Our Lady of Fatima is one of the titles given to the Virgin Mary in Roman Catholic Church traditions, based on accounts by three shepherd children in the Portuguese town of Fatima in 1917.--9news.com.au