Virgin Mary on griddle: Sunny side up

by Mark Silva

Every time the Virgin Mary makes a cameo appearance -- be it in the glass-curtain of a downtown Tampa skyscraper or, as in this case, on the griddle of a border-town Mexican restaurant -- it's worth pausing to marvel at the world's wonders.

It reminds us of the miracle tree that once transfixed the people of Miami's Little Havana, a tree with oosing sap said to cure all that ailed the faithful. Heading out to report on the phenomenon one Sunday afternoon, after the tree was cut down in the middle of the night, we found that a man had returned with a truckload of woodchips and was selling them at the site.

No word on what they'll get for the griddle in Calexico, Calif., where a Mexican restaurant is attracting the "curious and faithful to see the likeness of the Virgin Mary that appeared miraculously on a griddle.''

When a cook at Las Palmas restaurant first saw it, "she started to cry and didn't want to clean the griddle anymore," said Brenda Martinez, manager of the family-run restaurant.

The griddle has been removed from the stove and stands on display in a room "quickly filling up with rosaries, flowers, votive candles and other offerings left by visitors from the Imperial Valley and from Mexicali across the border,'' the Los Angeles Times reports.

"I feel she is here with us. I can feel her presence," said Joe Acuna, who owns a landscaping firm. And the Rev. Edward Horning, associate pastor at St. Mary Catholic Church in nearby El Centro, who has examined the griddle, says: "If God wants to do something like this, he can do it."

(Griddle Mary,photo by Todd Krainin / Imperial Valley Press)