Our Lady of the Underpass

It’s hard to turn on Chicago news these days without hearing about the image of the Virgin Mary appearing on a wall beneath the Kennedy Expressway. There’s another picture here. (I guess she’s sick of grilled cheese sandwiches.) So many people are flocking to the site that the police have been called in for crowd control.

And, of course, there’s the requisite quote from a believer who thinks she’s been healed:

“I’m a breast cancer survivor and she really healed me,” Vrablik says. “And I believe so strongly in this. She’s reaching out to people.”

Wait a minute… She’s a breast cancer survivor, yet the saltwater stain did the healing? I guess a kiss laid on a holy chunk of concrete threads its way back through time to purge mutated cells from the body and/or perform mastectomy operations.

Tell you what, lady: show me some miraculously-restored titties and maybe I’ll concede there’s something to the stain. Until then it’s no different than the faces and penguin my kid and I see in the sponge paint on my bedroom wall. Just another classic case of pareidolia.