When Christine York's house in Brown's Valley burned down in an electrical fire on Feb. 19, she thought God had given her more ordeals than she could bear.

On Friday, she changed her mind.

On a stretch of burned wallpaper inside her house, York noticed what she thought looked like an image of the face of Jesus Christ.

"I thought I was going crazy," York said.

"I called the guys who were helping me clean up, and they were completely blown away by the image."

To 63-year-old York - a German Catholic - the soot-stained wallpaper is a sign God's son hasn't forgotten her, though her misfortunes could make it seem otherwise.

Perceiving impressions of divinities - especially the Virgin Mary - on physical objects occurs with some frequency among followers of Christianity.

In April 2005, a salt stain on the wall of the Fullerton Avenue underpass in Chicago was considered by many to resemble the Virgin Mary. In August 2006, a figure of the Virgin was perceived in a 2-inch-column of chocolate drippings by a chocolatier in Fountain Valley, Calif.

Closer to home, a woman in Watsonville said in 1992 that the Virgin of Guadalupe appeared to her on an oak tree and left an image in the bark.

The Catholic Church tends "not to say much" about such experiences, said the Rev. Tim Nondorf, a priest at St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Grass Valley.

"We don't know if it is supernatural or if it has a natural cause," Nondorf said. "Somebody's faith could make them see something that other people would not. So we tend to say, if (the sighting) moves someone to faith, then it's miraculous."

The Rev. James Murphy, rector of the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament - the seat of the Diocese of Sacramento- said queries on experiences similar to York's come to the church frequently.

"They are always explainable by natural causes," York said.

"That's not to say they are not meaningful for the person involved - they are," Murphy said.

"To a person of faith, God is present in everything. He speaks to all. If a pattern on the wall speaks to a person, it is meaningful to that person. Then, for that person, it's a miracle through the eye of faith."

No such case, however, has ever been officially investigated in the history of the Sacramento Diocese, Murphy said.

<i>To contact Staff Writer Soumitro Sen, e-mail soumitros@theunion.com or call 477-4229.</i>