In 1994Öa Miami, Florida woman saw the face of the Virgin Mary in her homemade grilled
cheese sandwich. Many believers called it a miracle.
Apparently, God was so busy burning Maryís image onto the sandwich, he was unable to
prevent a tornado from slamming into a church in Piedmont, Alabama on Palm Sunday, where
20 of his children died and 90 were injured. The sandwich also took precedence over four
plane crashes, a ferry accident, and the highway chase involving a certain O.J. Simpson. NoÖa
Virgin Mary sandwich was more important. And the woman sold it 10 years later on Ebay for
$28,000. Praise to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Toast.
In November of 2004, Fred Whan of Ontario, Canada looked onto his oven sheet and saw
the face of Jesus on a burned fish stick. Many of the faithful claimed it was a genuine
miracle. {ABC News November 23, 2004} One month later, on December 26th 2004, the
great Indian Ocean Tsunami unleashed the energy of 23,000 atomic bombs, violently drowning
230,000. The Canadian Jesus fish stick was unaffected.
In related news, Dan and Sarah Bell of Dallas Texas discovered a praying Jesus inside a
bag of Cheetos in 2009. And across the pond, two guys in Londonís Flat White Espresso
Bar created their own Jesus in the foam of a medium-sized latte. This last incident wasnít
a miracle, per se. We just thought it was funny.
In Sacramento, California in 2005, believers were drawn to the Vietnamese Catholic Martyrs
Church, where a statue of Mary appeared to weep blood from its left eye. Hundreds came
to pay homage to this genuine miracle Of course, to a closed-minded, hell-bound heathen, this
event might have paled in comparison to a man-made wonder on July 4th of that same year,
where NASA scientists had successfully flown a spacecraft the size of a Volkswagen 83 million
miles into deep spaceÖ over six monthsÖ to remotely launch a probe explode on the
surface of a comet Öwhich was itself traveling 23,000 miles per hour in another directionÖand
hit it perfectly. Manís accomplishment was pretty lame compared to a few red stains on
an inanimate statue in an obscure church, donít you think?
First photographed in the late 19th Century by amateur photographer Secondo Pia, and displayed
in the royal chapel of the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist, is the famous Shroud of
Turin, which many believers claim bears the imprinted image of Christ from his burial
after the crucifixion Öand is a genuine miracle. In October of 2009, an Italian scientist was
able to ìfakeî an identical shroud Öby painting a cloth with pigment and baking it
in a large oven. Itís unclear whether he used the same oven that was used for the fish
stick and the grilled cheese sandwich. YesÖthe faithful see wondrous, divine manifestations
all around them. They know that God may not intervene in the worldís most significant
events, but he WILL provide proof of himself in the small, unimportant things that might
have happened anyway. And then the church will praise God and celebrateÖand
theyíll mock the skeptics and call these things ìevidenceî that God is our father
who dearly loves all of us. Itís amazing. Itís supernatural. And of
courseÖitís a miracle!