Virgin Mary image draws throngs of the Superstitious
Pastor Dale Morgan
Virgin Mary image draws throngs of the Superstitious*
Feb. 24, 2007, 11:04AM
Superstitious Phenomenon to some, miracle to others
Metal baking sheet at an elementary school yields apparent likeness on
Ash Wednesday
By SARAH VIREN
Houston Chronicle
Religious simulacra is the name scientists give to images, like Mary or
Jesus, that people say they see in inanimate objects.
• Sandwich: In 2004, Florida resident Diana Duyser sold her grilled
cheese on eBay for $28,000. She claimed the sandwich was 10 years old,
and she had kept it, preserved in a plastic container, after noticing a
shape that looked like the Virgin Mary on the bread.
• Tortilla: In 1978, a woman frying tortillas in New Mexico said she saw
an image of Jesus within the pattern of burn marks on her tortilla. She
set up a shrine and thousands came to see it.
• Egg: Last year, villagers in Kazakhstan said they found an egg with
the word "Allah" inscribed on it in Arabic. A chicken laid the egg just
after a hail storm hit the Kazakh village, state media said.
They kneeled. They cried. They asked for healing.
Before them, on an altar of roses and prayer candles, was a metal baking
sheet, stained with what hundreds of Houston Catholics now believe is an
image of the Virgin Mary.
Guadalupe Rodriguez, a Pugh Elementary School cafeteria worker,
discovered the possible miracle on Ash Wednesday, while scrubbing away
the last crumbs from the pizza lunch.
By Friday, a steady stream of people were filing through the southeast
Houston front yard of Sylvia Calderon, a PTA member who took in the
sheet pan after school leaders decided they couldn't accommodate the
curious crowds.
At dawn, one woman arrived at Calderon's home in the Denver Harbor
neighborhood asking to see the Virgin's image before her 8-year-old son
had surgery. That afternoon another woman came for a blessing bearing a
picture of her grandson, who has cerebral palsy.
Scientists call this phenomenon religious pareidolia, when the eye sees
religious images in objects such as tree trunks and grilled cheese
sandwiches.
Believers say it's a miracle.
"It was beautiful," said Angie Bentancur, who left the picture of her
grandson beside the sheet pan Friday afternoon.
On Wednesday, Rodriguez, a longtime kitchen worker, was leaning over the
sink of the cafeteria at Pugh Elementary washing sheet pans — the kind
that normally hold rows of chocolate chip cookies or chicken nuggets.
It was with the last pan, pulled from the cold rinse, that the Virgin
appeared, Rodriguez, 59, said.
"I started looking at it, and started looking at it, until I realized it
was the Virgin," she said.
The pan appears to be stained, maybe by grease, with an image several
inches tall. A splotch of missing color resembles the Virgin Mother's
down-turned face, a slight rainbow stain running alongside this could be
a shawl.
Her hands still wet, Rodriguez took the pan to the cafeteria, and held
it up to her co-workers. What do you see, she asked?
The Virgin Mary, they said, undeniably — on a sheet pan.
Someone got the cafeteria manager, Coralia Pacay, who said the same:
undeniably, the Virgin Mary — on a sheet pan.
Pacay and Rodriguez went to Principal Lyda Guerrero. They asked her what
she saw.
"It was a silhouette," Guerrero recalled. "A silhouette of the Virgin Mary."
For believers, there is no doubt about Rodriguez's discovery. It is a
message from God. The find created a logistical problem for school
officials. When they got home Wednesday, many pupils who had seen the
sheet pan told their parents, many of whom returned to school to see for
themselves. Pacay propped up the pan near the lunch line.
The crowds grew to include neighbors, and soon district officials,
including Houston Independent School District Superintendent Abelardo
Saavedra, who agreed the tray had to go somewhere else. That's when the
PTA agreed to take it to Calderon's house.
"Right now because it is attracting a lot of attention, we just don't
want it in the school," said Rebecca Suarez, HISD spokeswoman. "But we
want to treat it with respect."
Calderon, who has a 7-year-old daughter at Pugh, has been up since dawn
and stayed awake until near midnight every day since then. She only
takes the sheet pan in when she sleeps.
A steady stream of people continue to shuffle into her yard. Most are
women, some with children. They walk from neighboring houses or park
down the street. Some hold bouquets, others candles or pictures.
They brush the Virgin's image with their palms, fingertips, the backs of
their hands. They close their eyes and make the sign of the cross.
Some hope to set up a permanent spot for the baking pan in the
neighborhood, where anyone can visit, day or night.
Regardless, school officials say they doubt it will go back to the wash
bin any time soon.
"I think someone was watching over us," Guerrero said. "I think someone
is watching over this community and this school district and this school."