Screen shot of video report by KOAT-TV, 'Jesus in Tortilla?'
When you’re the Almighty, though, you manage to find a way, nonetheless. And recently he did just that. The Christian Post reports he branded his own visage (or that of his son) on the surface of a tortilla, in Espanola, NM (WebCite cached article):
Another alleged sighting of Jesus is causing a stir once again, this time in New Mexico where a man claims Jesus appeared to him on a fresh baked tortilla.
David Sandoval from Espanola couldn’t believe what he was seeing last week when he sat down to eat dinner with his mother on Ash Wednesday.
There on one of his tortillas his mother made was the startling image of what resembles Jesus (see the image here, [cached]).
As we all know, seeing divine images in things is not new. People see Jesus and the Virgin Mary in things all the time, and I’ve blogged on some of them. Rather helpfully, the C.P. lists some prior appearances of the specific divine manifestation known as “the Tortilla Jesus”:
Holy images on the tortilla have reportedly been around for decades, beginning in 1977, when a woman named Maria Rubio from Lake Arthur, New Mexico, discovered a thumb-sized print of Jesus while rolling up a burrito for her husband.
Rubio created a small shrine for what was hailed as the first “Holy Tortilla,” and more than 35,000 people reportedly visited her home to see it, leaving flowers and photos of sick loved ones.
I’m sure all those believers would be happy to think their loved ones were cured by the intercession of the Tortilla Jesus. I’m more certain that, if any of them were helped, it was either by the illness or malady running its course naturally, or the intervention of doctors and nurses using conventional medical treatments. Let’s forget all the great work they do and ignore their contributions to our lives, and instead, give God all the credit. Why, how appreciative!
Folks, as I’ve noted previously and will say again, this is the phenomenon known as pareidolia. The human mind is hard-wired to discover patterns, and find recognizable things, in otherwise-accidental formations. There’s nothing magical or divine about it. With millions of tortillas being cooked around the world each day, it’s quite natural that occasionally one of them is going to end up with a Jesus-shaped scorch mark on it. To assume the Almighty branded it himself using his magical power — and that he has infinite power, but expresses it only in ways like this one — is just so fucking ridiculous, I hardly know what else to say about it.
Photo credit: KOAT-TV (screen shot).
