God appears in many guises...

Never mind the Turin Shroud, during the last decade the Lord has indeed appeared to us in many guises. Here's a top ten selection :

1. In November 2002, a devotee doing some baking for the Renewal Retreat Centre in Bangalore, India spotted an image resembling Jesus in a chapati. The likeness was hastily put on public display.
2. On Ash Wednesday in February 2007, Guadalupe Rodriguez, a cafeteria worker at Pugh Elementary in Houston, Texas, noticed a striking image while cleaning the dishes after lunch.
   "On the third rinse I started watching it, trying to discover what it was," she said. "It showed to me like it is the Virgin Mary." Anel Villareal, a pupil, recalled: "They said, 'The Virgin is in the cafeteria,' and I ran over there to see and, my God, it was the Virgin. I cried when I see her with my own eyes."
   The baking pan was soon on display in the front yard of a home a few streets away from the school, attracting numerous visitors.
3. In April 2006, Gregorio Gomez, a 57-year-old Tzotzil Indian, said a voice told him in a dream that he would find an image of Jesus Christ on a rock. The following month he stumbled across the "image" as he was walking near his village of Santa Anita, on Huitepec Mountain in Mexico.
   News of the likeness travelled quickly. Hundreds of people flocked to the rock to study the image and leave a candle.
4. In April 2009, an outline of the Virgin Mary was spotted on a food griddle at a restaurant on the California/Mexico border.
   The image was discovered by Hilda Maciel, a chef at the Las Palmas restaurant in the small border town of Calexico.
   The restaurant's general manager Brenda Martinez told the Associated Press that, after local churchman Reverend Gerardo Fernandez confirmed the image was a "true likeness of the Virgin", more than 100 people hurried to restaurant to view it. Among the onlookers was a group of masked Mexican wrestlers in town for an exhibition.
5. In September 2009 the Daily Telegraph noted that, if looked at from the right angle, a photograph of the Martian surface released by Nasa could show the face and robed body of Jesus. The photo had been taken the previous month.
6. In March 2006, members of the Triumph Learning and Worship Centre for Life, in Saraland, Alabama believed a section of drywall had buckled into an image of Christ on the cross. They attested that the depiction made them feel closer to God. Their church had been flooded by Hurricane Katrina the year before.
7. A tree stump in in Passaic, New Jersey was given a permanent shelter in December 2006, following repeated "glimpses" of the Virgin Mary. The new structure replaced a plywood lean-to that the city dismantled after the makeshift roof collapsed amid prayer candles, flowers and rosary beads.
8. On February 28 2006, Thomas Haley, an employee of Hardy's Hardware in Manchester, Connecticut, was busy unloading supplies from a truck when he discovered a piece of sheet metal he believed bore the image of Jesus Christ.
   Haley and a co-worker subsequently auctioned the piece of metal on eBay, where it was viewed more than 120,000 times. It was purchased for US$1,500 by online casino GoldenPalace.com.
9. The offices of West Midlands company EMS Maintenance Services were evacuated following flooding caused by a torrential downpour in November 2006.
   When staff returned to work the next day they discovered an five-inch "image" of the face of Jesus left behind in the cement of the factory floor. The likeness was made from the remnants of dried mud and concrete left behind by the flash flood at the company's factory in Willenhall, Wolverhampton.
   
10. In August 2006, workers at a luxury chocolate makers in Fountain Valley, California, discovered a two-inch dropping of chocolate that bore a striking resemblance to the Virgin Mary.
    Cruz Jacinto, a kitchen worker for Bodega's Chocolates, was the first to spot the lump of melted chocolate when she began her shift cleaning up drippings that had accumulated under a large vat. It looked just like the Virgin Mary on the prayer card she was carrying in her pocket.
    The uniquely-shaped chocolate dropping was initially displayed in the front of the company's gift shop but now rests in a back room and is brought out only for curious visitors.

Barking bloody mad, the lot of 'em!

(You can see the pictures by clicking here)