Seeing Jesus and Mary everywhere, not just the underpass

Plenty of Chicagoans have heard of or seen the waterstain-turned-monument to the Virgin Mary beneath the Fullerton Avenue underpass. The venerated image has even inspired a play, “Our Lady of the Underpass,” which ends its five-week run at the Greenhouse Theater on Sunday.

Chicago’s most well-known Christian icon sighting is one of three to occur in the area in recent years.  Photoblog Eight Minutes Old has listed and categorized more than 100 such appearances in the U.S.

Most of us find out about Jesus and Mary’s unusual earthly forms—from a crucifix-shaped Cheeto (aka “Cheesus”) to a Virgin-shaped scar—on the evening news.  This video, from Everything is Terrible, is a seven-minute compilation of news reports on sightings of Jesus and Mary from last year.

What strikes me about contemporary Christian apparitions…

Many were found at breakfast: in toast, pancakes, a frying pan, a donut, a cinnamon roll, a waffle.  Are believers more likely to recognize these images in the morning, right when they get up?  Does God favor the a.m. for appearances?  I clearly don’t have an answer for why; I just thought it was interesting.

Overall, they seem to come up in ordinary and unremarkable places: a rock, a pot, a stick, a tree trunk, the dirt, the sink.  This phenomenon follows the general Christian archetype, that Jesus came into this world and left this world in a modest manner, rather than with the nobility of a King or Savior. 

The Vatican, a few years ago, said that fewer than 4 percent of all reported apparitions in the 20^th-centruy were “genuine” and confirmed by the Church.  Still, I think these sightings, despite seeming wacky or appearing a little too nebulous to be true, serve a purpose if they remind people of the humility in Christianity and encourage them to look for the spiritual in their lives each day.