Do you see it? Man claims face of Jesus can be seen in wooden shelf
Gail Harding | CBC News | Posted: August 1, 2017 10:00 AM | Last Updated: August 1, 2017
Owner says he had shelf for 10 years before he saw the face
It wasn't until Mick Scanlan turned his wooden shelf upside down that he saw an apparition that had eluded him for the 10 years that he'd previously owned it: the face of Jesus in the wood grain.
"This was from Ontario. We had it on our wall for about ten years.…I just happened to one day turn to turn it over to put a plant on top of it and this is what I saw," he said.
"There's an eye, there's a nose, there's a full mouth, there's long hair and there's hands praying hands of Jesus."
'You can't not see it'
He said he's not the only one who has seen the face.
"Most of the people who look at it see it immediately," he said. "Once you've seen it, you can't not see it."
Scanlan estimates about 1,500 people have seen the face in the shelf in the three years since he discovered it.
"I think it's just unbelievable that it's there, that it's natural. It's a knot in the wood but you can see if there's any doubt at all, there's [the] praying hand underneath it. So that's what I feel. I feel that it's authentic."
While Scanlan said he's Catholic, he adds he's not religious.
"I've asked lots of people who are non-religious and lots have seen the same thing."
When asked if anyone has offered to buy it, Scanlan said no.
"They see it and there's a few people taking pictures of it. They're mostly flabbergasted."
Not endorsed by diocese
Gerald Gabriel of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charlottetown wouldn't offer an opinion on the claim that the face of Jesus was in the shelf.
"It's not so much what I think," he said. "It's what the church thinks and what the church teaches, and the church does not make pronouncements on the validity of these visual effects."
Gabriel pointed out no one really knows what the face of Christ looked like.
"We have artistic depictions and when people look at these natural, visual images, they are free to see what they want to see but the church does not make pronouncements about their authentic merit."
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