The Virgin Mary Baking Pan

Now, Religion in the News, a report and comment on religious trends and events being covered by the media.This week’s item is from The Houston Chronicle February 24, 2007, with a headline:Metal Baking Sheet Image of Virgin Mary Draws Throngs.They kneel, they cry, they ask 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, an elementary school cafeteria worker discovered the possible miracle on Ash Wednesday while scrubbing away the last crumbs from the pizza lunch.Believers say it’s a miracle.On Wednesday, Rodriguez, a long time kitchen worker, was leaning over the sink of a cafeteria at Pue 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 rise 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.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. They asked principal Leda Gerrero what she saw.It was a silhouette, Gerrero recalled, a silhouette of the Virgin Mary. The crowds grew to include neighbors, and soon district officials, including Houston Independent School District Superintendent Alavalardo Sevedra, who agreed the tray had to go somewhere else.That’s when the PTA agreed to take it to Coloron’s house.A steady stream of people continued to shuffle into Coloron’s yard.They walked from neighboring houses or parked down the street.Some hold bouquets, others candles or pictures, some hope to set up a permanent spot for the baking pan in the neighborhood where anyone can visit day or night.“I think someone was watching over us,” Gerrero said, “I think someone is watching over this community and this school district and this school.”

Tom:

Dave, for some of us viewers, listeners, I’ll give you an update.2004 we had the half grilled cheese sandwich that was sold on e-bay for $28,000, which, supposedly it looks like the Virgin Mary.We had a tortilla in 1978, a woman frying tortillas in New Mexico.When she saw the image of Jesus, she set it up as a shrine and thousands came to visit that.Last year villagers in Kazakhstan said they found an egg with the word, “Allah” inscribed in Arabic, and a chicken laid the egg just after a hail storm hit the Kazak village, the state media said.Now, this is either the theater of the absurd, or there is something really seriously wrong here, and it may be a mixture of both, Dave.This is idolatry, and my concern is that, you know, we’ve had this—having grown up Roman Catholic, I’ve seen this all through my life.On the other hand, I’m seeing this right now in the evangelical church.Maybe not a pan that somebody cooked pizza on leaving an image, but imagery has moved into the evangelical church, particularly the movement called, the emerging church, and I’m really concerned about it.

Dave:

Well, Tom, hearing this from Gary, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.As you said, it’s the theater of the absurd.On the other hand, what is it?Well, it’s the very opposite of what the Bible says.It’s the opposite of what we’ve been talking about.Search the scriptures daily. In His law doth He meditate day and night.These people, they have no interest in the scriptures, sadly, what is the substitute?Wow! A miracle!Virgin Mary has been—what does that mean?Does God ever promise to send pictures of the virgin Mary?Furthermore, she’s not a virgin anymore, she wasn’t—it says she was a virgin until she brought forth her first born Son, Matthew tells us that, first born!And the Bible even names his brothers, and there were sisters who were born to Mary.The Bible never indicates that anyone ever prayed to Mary, has she ever answered a prayer, that she has any special place.She is blessed, she was chosen to be the mother of the body, physical body that the Son of God took when He came into this world, but read the scriptures.Mary, here Jesus is ministering to crowds of people and they tell him—they manage to slip through the crowd and say, Wait, your mother and your brethren are outside.And Jesus says, Who is my mother, who are my brethren?Those that hear the Word of God, and do it.But now Mary has been given a special place—you know the whole thing, Tom, the immaculate conception, she was born without sin.No, the Bible says all have sinned.So, what happens?The focus of the attention turns from—we’ve been talking about it turning from scriptures to psychology, and now it’s turned—well, it’s been going on for centuries—turned from Christ to Mary!

Tom:

Well, not only that but from the Word to imagery.

Dave:

Right.

Tom:

Dave, for any of our listeners or our viewers who would like to check this out, just go back to the Middle Ages.Go back to Pope Gregory the Great, he said that we need images for the ignorant—okay, because an image would be a book for the illiterate.So that was going to be a great help, but what came from that? Superstition, people making these things up as they went along, and now it has come back with a fury.As I said, not just—I mean it’s always been in Roman Catholicism, but now we see that influence upon the evangelical church.

Dave:

The Bible is not a picture book, so it’s not going to help anybody understand the Bible if you make pictures of it, or you put it in a video, or whatever.There’s a book written back in the 1890’s, I think Tom, it was called, Extraordinary Delusion and the Madness of Crowds, and he talks about this sort of thing.He says, There were enough pieces—in Europe in those days—there were enough pieces of the true cross to build a cathedral!They even worshipped the feet of the toenail cuttings of the apostles, and the guy is kind of a funny writer, and he says, And the toenails of Peter were extraordinarily prolific, there were enough clippings to fill a gunny sack, all over Europe.Tom, I’ve been there, you’ve been there, I’ve looked at them.Oh, my gracious!It’s a tragedy, let’s get back to the Word of God.And furthermore, Jesus Christ is the Saviour, and no one comes to the Father but by Him.This is what He says.