A Crying Mary Statue

Witness: Josie Salerno and Jaime Mihalski
Location: Lyons, Illinois
Date of Encounter: 2002

I went to a catholic school for about eight years — it was called St. Hugh. It was not really your average catholic school — we had recess in a parking lot and we went to church every Monday and Friday mornings.

Me and my best friend, Jaime used to say we had to go to the washroom and ditch church half of the time. One Friday morning while we were ditching we went down the hallway to the washroom and it was almost pitch black. In the hallway there was an oversized statue of Mary with snakes at her feet — she is normally standing with her head slightly bowed, but when we were on our way to the washroom she was kneeling and had her head up like she was praying. We ran to the washroom scared out of our minds, but then Jaime went back to take a closer look. When I noticed I was alone, I went back too and when I got to the statue I noticed that Mary was crying. Jaime and I just stood there pale and afraid. After church when we were saying our morning prayer — the crucifix fell right off of the wall where it hung. We never said anything about it before to anyone because we didn't want anyone to think we were crazy — entering this makes me feel less insane.