What Would Jesus See

When Vintage Vendors, an antique shop in Tralee, County Kerry, Northern Ireland, bought a cabinet last year they put it on the floor to sell. About a month later a customer came in and asked if they’d noticed that the wood grain on the door bears a remarkable resemblance to Mary, famed mother of Jesus Christ. Even more amazing, according to Damien Culhane who works in the shop, “I took the door off and held it up the other way and it looks even better upside down.”

The origins of the mahogany cabinet are largely a mystery. “It was built in about 1905 or 1910 in Hereford, England by Greenlands and Co” and was purchased in a private transaction in Kerry.

Since posting a photo on Facebook – gasp! – locals have been dropping by to kiss, rub, and say a prayer next to the cabinet. Culhane says they have no plans to sell the cabinet but have been offered more than €10,000 ($11,014.50) so that could change.

It was bound to happen. Lesley Rowan, a 38-year-old mother from Alexandria in West Dunbartonshire, Scotland, was looking at photographs of the fire at Notre-Dame de Paris when she spotted what she thought looked like the image of Jesus Christ standing in the flames as they leaped up from the cathedral’s roof. She did what we would all do and shared it on Facebook. “I shared it and asked for people’s opinions,” she told the Daily Mail, “even my brother in Australia said it looks like Jesus.” Many on social media agreed. Shockingly. Rowan thinks it’s a good omen. “I feel like it will bring comfort to people in Paris and all over the world at this sad time.”

Last Friday, Italian artist and chef Alfredo Lo Brutto was on Piazza Sanseverino in Agropoli, Italy, looking at the water when he looked up and saw a radiant illuminated image in the clouds that looked like Jesus posed in open-armed blessing, much like the famous Christ the Redeemer statue that overlooks Rio de Janeiro. He took a couple of photos and posted them to Facebook. “I don’t often share pictures on social media,” he said, “but when I took this one, I instantly felt like I wanted other people to see, because it was so beautiful.”

Not surprisingly, the photo went viral and has attracted a lot of attention, which of course has Lo Brutto on Cloud 9.