The really suspect miracles are those that happen when you need them most. And so it was with the miraculous weeping that occurred in Chicago's St. John of God Church. On Mother's Day of 1984, two statues of the Virgin Mary were delivered by an itinerant priest who promised that the wooden icons would cry. St. John's needed a restoration of belief, some awe. Once a thriving Polish parish serving Chicago's stockyards, the congregation had dwindled to a few elderly faithful, alienated from their black and Hispanic neighbors in a changing neighborhood. Compassionately, Rosa Mystica (87:30 mins) explores the malaise that has gripped a church that seems as empty of spirit as its pews. By looking at the lives of the nuns, priests, and worshippers, Stephen Roszell's personable documentary identifies the church's inability to reinvent, or at least reinvigorate, faith in a changing world. St. John's became a retreat in both senses of the word. Preceded by Jeanne Finley's tabloid extravaganza, I Saw Jesus in a Tortilla (1982, 3:30 mins), in which the real miracle occurs in the media's devilish exploitation of Christ's culinary visitation. -Steve Seid