Grilled Cheese and Manicotti

This is actually last week's news, but I've been too busy to write in here for the past several days. So apparently some man dining in a restaurant says he saw the image of Jesus in his manicotti. He also claims that after he ate the manicotti, a chronic stomach ailment that plagued him disappeared. Now my question is why wouldn't he preserve this manicotti image and sell it on E-Bay, same as what happened with that grilled cheese sandwich that supposedly bore the likeness of the Virgin Mary?

I must say that while I consider myself a God-fearing Christian, I think Jesus and Mother Mary sightings in foodstuffs and other things are ridiculous. First of all, no one really knows what Jesus or His mother looked like; all we have to go by are artists renderings, none of whom really had any more to go by than you or me when it came to painting an accurate picture. So for all we know, that pattern formed as you pour syrup on your pancake might resemble them more closely than the grilled cheese sandwich that sold for an outrageous amount online.

And what could possibly be the purpose for Jesus to appear in your manicotti? Or the Virgin Mary to appear on a piece of grilled cheese sandwich? Considering that someone made an obscense profit on the sale of this sandwich, I fail to see any holy purpose to making an appearance like this. Maybe this invites the creation of a whole new category of holy men or women, those who are more adept at conjuring up images of Biblical characters in food that is given to them and thus are holier than thy neighbor. A whole new line of products could be marketed, those that give the buyer a higher chance of seeing a holy image in the food that is prepared with these products (such as spaghetti sauces, seasoning packets, pasta in various shapes, combo pizzas, etc.).

I do believe that God speaks to us in His way but I just find it difficult to believe He would speak to us by appearing in a serving of manicotti or that Mother Mary would be immortalized on a grilled cheese sandwich. Not even the ones they serve at Campanile on Thursday nights.