The real story behind Maria Morales Rubio, who became a media sensation — and an easy punchline — when she saw Jesus in a freshly made tortilla in 1977
, one of those sunny and windy days when I decided to stay home from school for the millionth time, I had just settled in for the night with a big, sodium-rich bowl of instant ramen and an episode ofwhen I heard a knock at the door. As a 10-year-old latchkey kid whose parents worked long hours, you’d think the right idea would have been to just turn down the TV, the way I was taught to when Jehovah Witnesses came by early Saturday mornings.
A white couple stood in front of me, bearing cheesy grins and a giant camera. “Oh-lah! Is this the Rubio residence?” one of them asked. “We’re here to see the Jesus tortilla!” Them, and thousands of others who’d darkened our door over the last 12 years. They had come from somewhere across the country, and were “just passing through” Lake Arthur, our tiny town in New Mexico, probably en route to the Roswell UFO museum, some 35 miles north.
where the Jesus tortilla resided. After spending its first few years in our humble dining room, the tortilla wedge had migrated out to a capilla that my mother and aunt built in the front yard, just to the left of my bedroom window, on top of a slab of concrete that my dad filled in late one night. I unhinged the glass doors that opened into the little shed, then stood by while theyed.
She got up and made breakfast for my dad and older siblings, starting with the flour tortillas that her now-80-year-old hands can no longer make. She worked the masa while the comal sat on the old stove, absorbing as much heat as the tired burners could crank out. Once the comal was piping hot, she carefully laid out the tortillas, one by one. After cooking the tortillas, she laid each one on the counter, always right side up.
The stain was tiny, a little larger than a quarter, but distinct. She knew what she was looking at, but she needed someone else to see it too, to acknowledge what she was seeing. She called out to my older sister Rosy, who is extremely Catholic — well, Catholic enough that the only thing that kept her from leaving New Mexico to join a convent is that she would’ve had to give up smoking — and asked what she saw on the tortilla.
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