AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |
Back to Blog
Underpass virgin mary1/11/2024 You can’t take away faith, no matter how hard you try. “Places like this are a testament to people’s faith. Wilkowski, leader of the Protestant denomination of 5,000. “This has not faded away,” said Bishop James A. One bishop of the Evangelical Catholic Church, a denomination which is not affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church, insisted that the image and the ensuing hoopla demonstrate a spiritual hunger in the lives of many. Shortly after, though, employees of a local carwash used a degreasing agent to scrub away the paint and the shoe polish-restoring the image to nearly original condition.Įven in its diminished form, the image drew visitors by the hundreds. Concerned that the site had become a target and a traffic hazard, maintenance workers sprayed the entire image, covering it with brown paint. After three weeks, a bicyclist stopped and scrawled “Big Lie” across part of the image in shoe polish. Someone erected a cinder block frame around the Virgin’s muddy feet, marking the spot and protecting it from damage.Īs national media converged on the Fullerton Avenue Accident Investigation Site, trouble ensued. The shrine was protected by sawhorses, and police were assigned to provide protection for the growing throngs of curiosity-seekers and faithful who gathered. In the days and weeks that followed, believers-many of them of Puerto Rican heritage-decorated the site with candles and flowers. The couple determined that they would share the story with others-and by later Sunday afternoon, more than 100 people gathered on Fullerton Avenue to see for themselves and to pray. At the site the following morning, Fidel Delgado described his shock when he first saw the detailed image. Later Delgado went home and told her husband Fidel, who was skeptical until he saw it for himself. Delgado-stunned by what seemed to her to be a vivid message from the Mother of God-slipped into the emergency lane, got out of her car, and fell to her knees in prayer. The image appeared along a section of roadway called the Fullerton Avenue Accident Investigation Site-a stretch where the road widens to allow police and emergency vehicles to stop without impeding traffic. Elizabeth Hospital, when she saw it: a life-sized stain in salt and soot and oil, the unmistakable outline of Our Lady of Guadalupe, on the crumbling concrete wall of the viaduct beneath the bridge. Delgado was driving westward on Fullerton Avenue, going home from her job at St. The concrete is sometimes cracked and greasy, marked by skid marks and the occasional pothole.Īt least, that’s what Obdulia Delgado saw on April 10, 2005. But our all-creative God can reach us through many means and God can use a faded concrete image to touch hearts.Ĭhicago’s Fullerton Avenue is a busy thoroughfare, one of a network of highly traveled commuter routes that escape the city by burrowing under the Kennedy Expressway. Would it be better if people turned, not to a faded image on a concrete wall, but to the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist in their local church? Well, yes.īut if a particular apparition or image causes people to pause, to reflect on their faith commitments, to pray-then isn’t there at least some good that comes from it? Of course, we hope that their prayer and introspection will lead them to an increased awareness of God in their lives, to an authentic faith which is lived through the Sacraments and the Church. But I’ve got to say that whether or not the image is truly the Mother of God, there has been a positive result in the lives of many Chicagoans. I wasn’t there when it happened I’ve not seen it in the five years since then. The story of Our Lady of the Underpass is one such extraordinary story.
0 Comments
Read More
Leave a Reply. |