Why is it that every apparition of someone in a robe always Mary? Who’s to say it isn’t Gertrude or Betty Sue or Carlos the Cross Dresser?
Please don’t give any ideas. Yet another spiritual accessory will be on the market.
Good catch!
The palm tree water stains apparition...
...looks like Gertrude. (Evidently the Virgin of Guadalupe and the Virgin of Carmen, holding baby Jesus in her arms, are in there, too...a hat trick!)
The candle-drippings one...
...looks like Betty Sue. (I can't believe how many times she's appeared to me and I've just tossed her out! Sorry, Betty Sue...I didn't know it was you!)
And then there's the hospital floor-stain one...
Yes, it's that dang Carlos! Grrr...messing up the floor!
(Seriously, though, Marian apparitions aren't always in robes, and skin color and other things have differed.)
Note...my apparently flippant response is not anti-Catholic in any way. It's Pro-understanding-why-pareidolia-is-so-prevalent...and natural.
Some fun TED talks...
Michael Shermer on strange beliefs
Michael Shermer: The pattern behind self-deception
"There is an universal tendency among mankind to conceive all beings like themselves, and to transfer to every object, those qualities, with which they are familiarly acquainted, and of which they are intimately conscious. We find human faces in the moon, armies in the clouds; and by a natural propensity, if not corrected by experience and reflection, ascribe malice or good-will to every thing, that hurts or pleases us. Hence the frequency and beauty of the prosopopoeia in poetry; where trees, mountains and streams are personified, and the inanimate parts of nature acquire sentiment and passion."
--David Hume, Natural History of Religion, III
Just remember...Ted Kennedy is on Mars!