"I am a Miracle: Woman Tells Story of Accident, Recovery" (account of healing by a miracle)

[St_Francis]

Where does the International Medical Committee of Lourdes present its findings and document them in the normal scientific way, for peer review? Or does it not?

“…the opinion of a large number of professional specialists will be sought by a member…”

The doctors of the IMCL are chosen for their medical expertise and not their religious involvement, and the doctor in charge of the case sends the medical history (before and after) to other doctors, who specialize in that field, for review.

Out of something like 5,000 cases reviewed, only 67 have been validated as completely inexplicable on the natural level. This does not mean that the others were *not *miracles, only that the miraculous nature of the event was not inexplicable *enough. *

 

[atheistgirl]

I’ll tell you why. Because, the adamant atheists, namely Dawkins and the late hitchens wouldn’t have accepted a miracle if it happened right in front of them. They would still deny anything happening, that’s how badly they blinded themselves to the TRUTH. Here were are as Catholics, offering bona fide evidence, yet all the atheists and you would say is : well either science caused it, or it didn’t happen. So you wouldn’t accept the explanation, hence the saying “to those without Faith, no explanation is possible”. No matter how I would explain the Faith to you, as the Faith is very logical and rational and atheism is very irrational and very illogical, you would deny it to your dying breath. Hoped that answered your question.

Don’t pull the blinds over your eyes, you wont be able to see

Well that attitude pretty much dismisses the claims made on another thread that atheists converted in their hundreds upon witnessing the sun dance at Fatima

You can’t have it both ways

Sarah x

 

[St_Francis]

So there are two sorts of understanding: one, that we humans can do unaided and two, that we can do assisted by God.

Am I right in thinking that this understanding - that there are two sorts of understanding, is one of the second sort? And if so, is not the reasoning here entirely circular: “I understand in a manner that I can only do with God’s help that there is a sort of understanding that can only be done with God’s help”?

First, Let me say that I really appreciate your respect for believers, and that you ask very good questions!

I’m wading around in uncharted (for me) territory, so I may not be fully clear in how I put this.

First, there are two levels of information: natural, which we can figure out on our own, and revealed, which God has to reveal to us.

This is one of the great things about Aristotle, he figured out and wrote down a lot about a Being which he figured out through thinking.

Then we have revelation, the knowledge we could not figure out on our own, which comes from the body of knowledge of the Jews and the Catholics.

Anyone can *learn *about this; last night I read about Dr Mortimer Adler, who loved St Thomas Aquinas but only became a Christian in 84, then converted to Catholicism in 99 when he was 96 years old. Yet he was writing about St Thomas’ thought for decades…

So in answer to your question, I think that a person can understand that there are the two types of understanding, just as we can understand that one has to go through a process in order to gain understanding of a difficult topic without having to understand the difficult topic. You just wouldn’t *experience *knowing either without going through the appropriate process.

And while I appreciate that this has meaning for you, as faith allows you to leap on the thought-go-round at any point, can you accept that it is completely without meaning to me? Can you also accept that I cannot see the difference between this leap of faith and that of a Muslim, in the Koran as the direct word of God, or a Hindu in their personal reincarnation, or an animist in the essential life principle of a rock?

Now I’m going to really go out on a limb—what I say is *solely *my own reflection on your question and may be completely wrong.

The Church teaches that other religions contain elements of the truth. It may be flawed or incomplete, but there are those elements. I don’t know how the process is for converting to Islam or Hinduism, but there still has to be that element of *choosing to believe. *Even for those religions, there still has to be a movement of the person to accept the teaching authority of the religion and its leaders.

I do believe that there is an essential difference between the life-long experience of a serious Catholic and the life-long experience of a member of another religion, but I think that difference would be different from what you might think it would be. It would be like the difference between being in the kiddie pool and the deep end—you can get wet in both places, but in Catholicism, you can fully swim.

God calls everyone; He speaks to all people. It’s just that in the Catholic Church, the signal is the very best.

 

[St_Francis]

So there are two sorts of understanding: one, that we humans can do unaided and two, that we can do assisted by God.

Am I right in thinking that this understanding - that there are two sorts of understanding, is one of the second sort? And if so, is not the reasoning here entirely circular: “I understand in a manner that I can only do with God’s help that there is a sort of understanding that can only be done with God’s help”?

First, Let me say that I really appreciate your respect for believers, and that you ask very good questions!

I’m wading around in uncharted (for me) territory, so I may not be fully clear in how I put this.

While there are two levels of knowledge, natural and revealed, a person can learn *about *revealed knowledge without becoming religious. So this is not the point.

What is the point is the *experience *of understanding in a more complete way. For example, I bake bread. I started off reading a book and trying out a recipe. It came out very badly: I had the *knowledge, *but not the *experience. *In the same way, I think that you can *understand *that there are things one could understand only with God’s help, but not *experience *that.

So now, I can look at what my children are doing when they try to bake bread, and I can tell them what they are doing wrong—I just “get” what they are doing wrong.

Or maybe it’s like learning a language to the point where you hear a mistake and correct yourself because you have soaked in enough of the language to be able to do that.

I mean, one has to *practice *being religious! One develops as a Catholic with practice. It may be that God will grant certain special graces of understanding, but it may not be. I still, after 17 years, struggle with certain thinking patterns left over from my many years of being secular. But in other areas, God lifts me over difficulties in thinking.

We (my family) aim to say the Rosary every night. Most weeks we are lucky if we say it 6 times. But we did pray a 54-day novena, and I prayed the Rosary every day (except 1, which my children did pray) and I realized in the middle of the novena that I was getting better at praying the Rosary, that, wow! praying the Rosary is like practicing being in touch with God! But it’s not like fake practicing, it’s reality-based practicing like when I baked another loaf of bread for my family to eat.

And while I appreciate that this has meaning for you, as faith allows you to leap on the thought-go-round at any point, can you accept that it is completely without meaning to me? Can you also accept that I cannot see the difference between this leap of faith and that of a Muslim, in the Koran as the direct word of God, or a Hindu in their personal reincarnation, or an animist in the essential life principle of a rock?

Now I’m going to really go out on a limb—what I say is *solely *my own reflection on your question and may be completely wrong.

The Church teaches that other religions contain elements of the truth. It may be flawed or incomplete, but there are those elements. I don’t know the details of the process of converting to Islam or Hinduism, but there still has to be that element of *choosing to believe. *Even for those religions, there still has to be a movement of the person to accept the teaching authority of the religion and its leaders. So there is still a leap of faith.

I do believe that there is an essential difference between the life-long experience of a serious Catholic and the life-long experience of a member of another religion, but I think that difference would be different from what you might think it would be. It would be like the difference between being in the kiddie pool and the deep end—you can get wet in both places, but in Catholicism, you can fully swim.

God calls everyone; He speaks to all people. It’s just that in the Catholic Church, the signal is the very best.

 

[jeannetherese]

I wish people would stop quoting this 13th-century error in thinking at me. On what possible basis can it be held that people without faith cannot accept an explanation?

Hi Hokomai,
I think that people without faith can accept all sorts of explanations. It seems to me that a problem some of them might have with accepting miracles is that a miracle, by definition, defies explanation unless the explanation is supernatural. I’m basing my suggestion upon the definition of miracle that I found at dictionary.com. I have included it below.
Thank you for sharing your ideas at CAF.
mir·a·cle
   [mir-uh-kuhl] Show IPA
noun
1.
an effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause.
2.
such an effect or event manifesting or considered as a work of God.
3.
a wonder; marvel.
4.
a wonderful or surpassing example of some quality: a miracle of modern acoustics.
5.
miracle play.

1125–75; Middle English miracle, miracul (< Old French miracle ) < Latin mīrāculum, equivalent to mīrā ( rī ) to wonder at + -culum -cle2

 

[Hokomai]

Thank you for the interesting responses to what I said earlier.

I think that beliefs are a type of thought, that is, a biochemical chain of events in the brain which are related to, but not always in the same way for different people, things we experience through our senses.

Many on CAF think that beliefs about faith are something more: they are also caused in some way by the actions of non-material things (God, the soul etc).

What has this to do with miracles? Well, most miracles (certainly the ones attributed to saints in the process of canonization) are said to be the observable result of a spiritual impact on the material world.

Some in this thread believe that these can only be appreciated through faith; that is if your brain is already influenced, and has had beliefs placed there, through a spiritual intervention.

So, a miracle is needed to appreciate a miracle!

But if this were so - why does God bother with the miracle, as he is capable of implanting belief directly in the brain? and if he did bother, would it not be to convince people without faith already planted in their brain?

And if this were the case, would he not do more impressive miracles - that is, things which could not possibly happen naturally, like the dead of a century ago rising, or amputated limbs (on people, not starfish) growing back, or making a dinosaur appear in Central Park?

 

[St_Francis]

Well that attitude pretty much dismisses the claims made on another thread that atheists converted in their hundreds upon witnessing the sun dance at Fatima

You can’t have it both ways

Sarah x

Notice that she qualified the word atheists: “adamant atheists like Dawkins…” Clearly the poster did not mean all atheists.

 

[atheistgirl]

Notice that she qualified the word atheists: “adamant atheists like Dawkins…” Clearly the poster did not mean all atheists.

Here’s her exact quote:

Here were are as Catholics, offering bona fide evidence, yet all the atheists and you would say is : well either science caused it, or it didn’t happen.

All the atheists.

As I said you can’t have it both ways, you can’t claim on the one hand all the atheists would just say it’s natural, or didn’t happen, and on the other hand claim thousands of atheists converted at Fatima.

A claim by the way, despite a lot of research online, I can’t find any evidence for.

I can feel a trip to Portugal coming on to examine Church records to see just how many exactly converted after Fatima

Sarah x

 

[Julia_Mae]

So, who are the “Physicians [who] told her family that even if she survived emergency surgery, she’d spend the rest of her life in a vegetative state”. What was the basis of this prognosis? Exactly when was it given? Are there records? If so, have they been published? Why do all these miracles stories include unnamed doctors expressing hopelessness, but treating the patient anywhere, and then declaring the cure a miracle? Might it not, in this case, have been related to the emergency surgery?

When the Vatican investigates these cases, every medical record is submitted, statements from every doctor, nurse, orderly, anyone who had contact with the patients are taken and submitted. Any tests, xrays, prints-outs from EEGs, ECGs are also submitted, all lab reports and statements from all civilian witnesses are submitted.

There is an advocate who argues against the case as well as an advocate for the case. There is a panel of doctors including specialists in the field of the miracle, who examine all this evidence.

The vast majority of cases are turned down as far as declaring Divine intervention, even though they are often quite compelling, because the requirements are very stringent.

Why don’t they publish them? Why should they, it’s not about you and what you think, or believe or about entertaining the general public or making a sideshow out of the process.

There are also rather a lot of miracles you could read about that people have written books about and provided their own medical records. Bet you haven’t read one or researched them.

 

[St_Francis]

Thank you for the interesting responses to what I said earlier.

I think that beliefs are a type of thought, that is, a biochemical chain of events in the brain which are related to, but not always in the same way for different people, things we experience through our senses.*

Many on CAF think that beliefs about faith are something more: they are also caused in some way by the actions of non-material things (God, the soul etc).

There’s a philosphical thing which says that you can’t get more out of something than what is in it. I can’t see us as merely a bunch of chemicals which somehow coalesced and got life somehow and then became the complete individuals that we are. As a society, we seem to have this incredibly odd idea that randomness can accomplish what intelligence cannot.

Many years ago, I heard a talk in which a scientist discussed his conversion, and one thing he said really struck me–that he realized it took more “faith” to believe in a-theistic evolution than it did to believe in God.

So in an odd way you do not understand what we believe, but I find what you believe mysterious as well.

What has this to do with miracles? Well, most miracles (certainly the ones attributed to saints in the process of canonization) are said to be the observable result of a spiritual impact on the material world.*

Some in this thread believe that these can only be appreciated through faith; that is if your brain is already influenced, and has had beliefs placed there, through a spiritual intervention.

No… this is not an accurate description.

God sends each person grace to chose to follow Him, so that’s like someone extending a hand to help someone.

He doesn’t “put beliefs in our heads.”*

Consider a typical movie scenario: some lonely depressed guy meets the woman of his dreams and suddenly the world looks totally different. Has the girl put beliefs in his head?*

OTOH, he is indeed influenced by the girl.

So, a miracle is needed to appreciate a miracle!

No. We have a certain nature; both natural and supernatural, and this is in line with our nature, not miraculous.

 

[atheistgirl]

So, who are the “Physicians [who] told her family that even if she survived emergency surgery, she’d spend the rest of her life in a vegetative state”. What was the basis of this prognosis? Exactly when was it given? Are there records? If so, have they been published? Why do all these miracles stories include unnamed doctors expressing hopelessness, but treating the patient anywhere, and then declaring the cure a miracle? Might it not, in this case, have been related to the emergency surgery?

Here’s an interesting read that I believe is quite accurate on the process, and it relates to a miracle attributed to a sister Mohawk Kateri Tekakwitha, who I think is going to be canonized a saint very soon.

npr.org/2011/04/22/135121360/a-boy-an-injury-a-recovery-a-miracle

Sarah x

 

[St_Francis]

Here’s her exact quote:

All the atheists.

As I said you can’t have it both ways, you can’t claim on the one hand all the atheists would just say it’s natural, or didn’t happen, and on the other hand claim thousands of atheists converted at Fatima.

A claim by the way, despite a lot of research online, I can’t find any evidence for.

I can feel a trip to Portugal coming on to examine Church records to see just how many exactly converted after Fatima

Sarah x

I disagree with you, but I guess it’s just one of those internet communication things where it’s hard to tell.

 

[St_Francis]

Here’s an interesting read that I believe is quite accurate on the process, and it relates to a miracle attributed to a sister Mohawk Kateri Tekakwitha, who I think is going to be canonized a saint very soon.

npr.org/2011/04/22/135121360/a-boy-an-injury-a-recovery-a-miracle

Sarah x

Interesting article! Thanks for posting it.

 

[Hokomai]

Here’s an interesting read that I believe is quite accurate on the process, and it relates to a miracle attributed to a sister Mohawk Kateri Tekakwitha, who I think is going to be canonized a saint very soon.

npr.org/2011/04/22/135121360/a-boy-an-injury-a-recovery-a-miracle

Sarah x

Well I think it far more likely that this recovery was the result of the massive medical intervention described in the article. But I like the way the boy’s illness and the community concern for him reached around the world and back through ancestral lineages (in this case to Kateri Tekakwitha). We non-believers find it hard to do that, although I have sometimes wondered if the posting to encourage the sick on Facebook are not a sort of cyber-prayer, producing similarly useful community effects without the need for belief.

 

[atheistgirl]

Well I think it far more likely that this recovery was the result of the massive medical intervention described in the article.

Me too.

But I like the way the boy’s illness and the community concern for him reached around the world and back through ancestral lineages (in this case to Kateri Tekakwitha).

The positive effects of the sense of belonging are well documented and understood.

We non-believers find it hard to do that, although I have sometimes wondered if the posting to encourage the sick on Facebook are not a sort of cyber-prayer, producing similarly useful community effects without the need for belief.

Not aware of this, but I can easily see how it could have a similar effect as knowing many are praying for you. If you feel many are thinking about you, and wishing you well, and hoping for the best outcome for you, you’re bound to feel the ‘‘roar of the crowd’’ behind you, and that motivates you, gives you strength, to fight on.

Sarah x

 

[BroomWagon]

This is a great story I missed the first time around.

 

[Mrs_Sally]

One thing to note is that the accident happened in 1995 - 15 years ago. Medical science into brain injuries and treatment was not as advanced then. And other than the surgery to remove the blood clot, the article doesn’t list any other kind of treatment.

The investigation was 3 years long, and based on how other miracles have been investigated, I am sure the doctors were interviewed, her medical records were reviewed, and other doctors called in to give their opinions of the treatments and procedures used.