Either the Virgin Mary is getting lazy or her artistic skills have gone downhill immensely as the picture to the right shows that her latest appearance on a random object leaves a helluva lot to the imagination. That doesn’t matter to the True Believers™ though as they have started coming out of the woodwork to pray, cry, and make amazingly silly comments to a friggin’ cookie sheet:

Guadalupe Rodriguez, a Pugh Elementary School cafeteria worker, discovered the possible miracle on Ash Wednesday, while scrubbing away the last crumbs from the pizza lunch.

By Friday, a steady stream of people were filing through the southeast Houston front yard of Sylvia Calderon, a PTA member who took in the sheet pan after school leaders decided they couldn’t accommodate the curious crowds.

At dawn, one woman arrived at Calderon’s home in the Denver Harbor neighborhood asking to see the Virgin’s image before her 8-year-old son had surgery. That afternoon another woman came for a blessing bearing a picture of her grandson, who has cerebral palsy.

Scientists call this phenomenon religious pareidolia, when the eye sees religious images in objects such as tree trunks and grilled cheese sandwiches.

Believers say it’s a miracle.

“It was beautiful,” said Angie Bentancur, who left the picture of her grandson beside the sheet pan Friday afternoon.

Yeah there’s nothing more beautiful than stained cookware. Here’s the part that really cracks me up, though, Ms. Rodriguez admits that she had to really look hard to see the Virgin Mary when she first made her “miraculous” discovery:

It was with the last pan, pulled from the cold rinse, 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.

Next time try squinting. That worked well for the Virgin Fence Post.

For believers, there is no doubt about Rodriguez’s discovery. It is a message from God. The find created a logistical problem for school officials. When they got home Wednesday, many pupils who had seen the sheet pan told their parents, many of whom returned to school to see for themselves. Pacay propped up the pan near the lunch line.

The crowds grew to include neighbors, and soon district officials, including Houston Independent School District Superintendent Abelardo Saavedra, who agreed the tray had to go somewhere else. That’s when the PTA agreed to take it to Calderon’s house.

“Right now because it is attracting a lot of attention, we just don’t want it in the school,” said Rebecca Suarez, HISD spokeswoman. “But we want to treat it with respect.”

I can’t think of anything funnier to say than that last line about showing a stained cookie sheet proper respect. You can’t make up shit this funny. But it gets better:

Some hope to set up a permanent spot for the baking pan in the neighborhood, where anyone can visit, day or night.

Come one come all and pray to the Miraculous Dirty Baking Sheet!