Questioning miracles?

[Bonnie]

.2. Why are there lots of crutches but no wooden legs hanging on the wall of the cathedrals in Mexico, Lourdes, Fatima, etc? Can God not grow a new leg?

I think we read the same article!

And from Boomerang: “2. God heals what you’ve got. Not what you don’t have. You don’t have a leg? He’s not going to heal it. Sorry. It’s gone. You’ll get it back with your glorified body at the end.”

If God can’t replace body parts, what’s he doing in the God business? According to Genesis, God created the first people out of clay. I would think that working with a human body would be easier.

Most of the miracles one hears about are penny-ante stuff - nothing big, nothing obviously God-like. For the ones that are big - Fatima for instance - there is no evidence. Cameras existed then, but no pictures were taken of the sun.

I’d rather think that God doesn’t do miracles at all, rather than have to settle for a God who can only find parking spaces.

To me, God is a spiritual being who works on a spiritual level. I won’t demean him by crediting him with small, human-sized “miracles.”

 

[Porknpie]

While there are some I don’t understand, there are none (so far) that are evident enough that I would be willing to call them miracles.

Bonnie,

You can cease to be Catholic and become Protesant, believing the bread and wine are simply that, symbols only and that no miracle occurs in their becoming the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ.

It’s inconsistent to believe that Jesus can perform the miracle of the Eucharist but can perform no other miracles, especially when recognized as such through his infallible body, the Catholic Church that he promised to lead to all truth until the end of time.

Pork

 

[Bonnie]

Bonnie,

You can cease to be Catholic and become Protesant, believing the bread and wine are simply that, symbols only and that no miracle occurs in their becoming the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ.

It’s inconsistent to believe that Jesus can perform the miracle of the Eucharist but can perform no other miracles, especially when recognized as such through his infallible body, the Catholic Church that he promised to lead to all truth until the end of time.

Pork

But that is a spiritual miracle, a sacramental miracle - not a physical one. The bread does not become visibly human flesh, nor does the wine become visibly human blood.

It is something that one accepts through fath, not because it has been seen, touched, or tasted.

 

[Geo17]

I think the miracles of Fatima were indeed major miracles. As for cameras, that is movie cameras, such things were in their infancy in 1917. First of all, almost no one expected anything to happen that day. Certainly not anyone from Hollywood who would have a movie camera. Back then to take motion pictures required light reading and then setting the camera appropriately with just the right frames per second, based on the available light and the aperture of the lens. The camera would have had to be on a tripod, which probably would have fallen over during the rain. I worked in the field of photography, and motion picture photography was very difficult at best in 1917. It isn’t feasible to think anyone would have been prepared to takes motion pictures of something only religious peasants believed might happen. But there was a few still life pics done, and the next day the event was in many major newspapers. Even if it was to laugh at them.

But people and the ground which was soaked by rain was dried very quickly. And we are told some people were healed. These are major miracles.

 

[GospodiPomiluj]

Acts 5:12 The apostles performed many signs and wonders among the people.

Acts 9:40 Peter sent them all out of the room; then he got down on his knees and prayed. Turning toward the dead woman, he said, “Tabitha, get up.” She opened her eyes, and seeing Peter she sat up.

Acts 13:11 (Paul speaking) Now the hand of the Lord is against you. You are going to be blind for a time, not even able to see the light of the sun.” Immediately mist and darkness came over him, and he groped about, seeking someone to lead him by the hand.

There are at least 15 miracles recorded in Acts done by men through Christ.

But we are so enlightened in today’s world, we are so advanced past all this archaic superstition, our true god Science must have a better explanation, for obviously the Bible is just all hocus pocus. For example, it is much more intellectual to know that Tabitha wasn’t really dead, she was probably just in some psychosis. Perhaps it was self induced due to stresses of the ancient world. I would much believe Freud over any successor of Peter. But now excuse me, I must get to my cocktail party at the surrealism art gallery. mwahaha

 

[Porknpie]

But that is a spiritual miracle, a sacramental miracle - not a physical one. The bread does not become visibly human flesh, nor does the wine become visibly human blood.

It is something that one accepts through fath, not because it has been seen, touched, or tasted.

Bonnie,

Why limit God’s miracles? If the same Church tells you infallibly that the bread and wine become the Body of Christ, why doubt the same Church on Fatima, Lourdes or any other miracle where the Church has declared it to be worthy of belief?

Either the Church is led to all Truth or it is not. If you believe it is not, then you can not trust it is correct on the Eucharist or even if the bible is inspired and inerrant.

Pork

 

[Bonnie]

Bonnie,
Why limit God’s miracles? If the same Church tells you infallibly that the bread and wine become the Body of Christ, why doubt the same Church on Fatima, Lourdes or any other miracle where the Church has declared it to be worthy of belief?

Worthy of belief, but not mandatory. One does not have to believe in Fatima, Lourdes, or any other “apparition” or “miracle” for salvation.

Either the Church is led to all Truth or it is not. If you believe it is not, then you can not trust it is correct on the Eucharist or even if the bible is inspired and inerrant.
Pork

Since the Church does not require faith in non-Biblical miracles (I don’t think we have to believe in all Biblical miracles either - Jonah & the big fish & Noah & the flood come to mind) I have no problem with the Church speaking the Truth when it comes to the faith necessary for salvation and morals.

 

[brumano]

…" Someone else said at Fatima the sun seemed to descend to earth as witnessed by thousands. I agree

, it even made the newspapers. Did it actually happen, no, it was a trick, a magic show put on to see how the gullible would react. Astronomers saw no such thing happen. The laws of physics would not allow it.

I’m the someone who said that, but I didn’t say the sun seemed to descend to Earth, i said it did descend toward Earth. I’m also one of the hundreds of thousands then and now who believe it actually happened, if I were one of the people who actually saw it I would state that I not only believe it happened i would know it happened the way i know that other miracles that i have seen happen, did happen. There is so much proof for the reality of the fatima miracle that you would really have to invest some serious time and thought into reading on the subject; one conclusion that i think will be inescapable for you if you do is that the persons and people who were involved and who witnessed it, were not characteristically gullible people.Aside from those, there were distinctly agnostic and anti catholic persons who did witness it. Your position is that it was an extremely advanced trick; but your comparison of the miracle of the sun to the display of “magic fire” is ridiculous enough in itself that it should give you pause for long enough to see that if it did happen, and you agree that it did, only God could do it.
Miracles of that magnitude obliterate the word impossible, astronomers did not see it, the earth didn’t heat up to 800C or thereabouts, even in the neighboring countries nothing was seen and it was a day of regular weather; that’s part of the miracle of it; it cannot be explained any other way. One other quick note; there is and will always be limits to what can be done by human devices, no matter how advanced.
The Laws of Physics and Nature are God’s also, He is the force in them and they are also subject to His Will.

 

[Bonnie]

I’m the someone who said that, but I didn’t say the sun seemed to descend to Earth, i said it did descend toward Earth. I’m also one of the hundreds of thousands then and now who believe it actually happened, if I were one of the people who actually saw it I would state that I not only believe it happened i would know it happened the way i know that other miracles that i have seen happen, did happen.

 

[mikekle]

brumano;11019243:

It was either an optical illusion of some sort, or bad memory. I vote for the latter. Humans are notoriously suggestible. That’s why all eye witness accounts of accidents & crimes, not to mention miracles, need to be taken with a huge dose of salt. We don’t remember details after even a short period of time, and our minds are happy to invent details to fill in the gaps.

Read up on memory & you’ll see what I mean.

If God really did change or suspend the laws of physics, what was the point? Would it not have been far more helpful to have cured a bunch of crippled or ill children? Or saved them from war or abuse? If he would rather use his power to play with the sun than cure or save innocent children…I really don’t know what to say about that.

This just proves humans are very gullible and IMO, the very first false prophet to come on the scene, nearly 99% of people will be fooled by this person. If people saw another person performing some great sign or wonder, like flying or breathing fire or something they cannot explain, they will consider that person to be divine.

 

[brumano]

that’s an interesting alternative; a large group of simple country people in early 20th century Portugal get together and go out to a drab cove in a relentless downpour where they are shown an optical illusion as if on cue when they begin saying the Rosary of rapidly clearing clouds and the sun brilliant as ever but dull enough in certain wavelengths that it can be looked at directly for a prolonged time without any harmful affects to their vision and they can see it’s spinning which is what it is always doing but we can’t normally see, and it’s emmiting and casting intense blended colors in rays, waves, and shafts and is reported to orbit around it’s own center point, spiral, zigzag, come straight toward earth increasing in size and in some incremental heat intensity tthat can be felt, and then stop and in a split second is back in it’s usual place and position for that time of day, and you vote that the whole thing is the outcome of collective illusion and bad memory.

All this means is that you do not see the point of what God was doing, but I can guarantee you one thing, He was not playing.

 

[Della]

People were healed the day the sun danced at Fatima, and people are still healed at Fatima and Lourdes in our times. The Church has documented the cures it considers miraculous after exhaustive investigation both medical and theological.

The sun moving oddly through the sky was witnessed by people quite far away who had no idea what it was or what it was associated with. The newspapers of the time documented this. It wasn’t an astronomical event, but one that took place locally, in that I agree that it was an optical event, but not an illusion as in a trick created by man. What man of the time could have pulled off such a trick? Certainly not 3 barely educated shepherd children. If there was a magician who could do such a trick he’d be earning large sums of money for doing it, not tricking peasants in a soaked field in the middle of nowhere.

Really, a knee jerk rejection based only on personal dislike of anything supernatural is not argument enough. Such a reaction proves nothing about miracles one way or the other.

 

[Bonnie]

All this means is that you do not see the point of what God was doing, but I can guarantee you one thing, He was not playing.

Please don’t keep me in suspense - what was the point?

 

[Bonnie]

It wasn’t an astronomical event, but one that took place locally, in that I agree that it was an optical event, but not an illusion as in a trick created by man.

I didn’t say it was a trick by man, but possibly an optical illusion. That would be a natural phenomenon.

Really, a knee jerk rejection based only on personal dislike of anything supernatural is not argument enough. Such a reaction proves nothing about miracles one way or the other.

Not a knee-jerk reaction, but I look at the natural possibilities before I look for the supernatural. People who focus on the supernatural first can get fooled - and many do. In my 60 years - 37 as a Catholic - I have never seen a real miracle. But I’ve seen a number of sham miracles. Some were total frauds, others were well-meant but mistaken.

 

[kepha1]

catholicnewsagency.com/news/lourdes-officially-records-69th-miracle/

youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=h7ixlLiHnBI

Lourdes, France, Jul 22, 2013 / 10:20 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The famous Marian shrine in Lourdes, France has received an official declaration from the Bishop of Pavia, Italy stating that the 69th miracle has taken place there.

"I have the joy of reporting to everyone my healing, which just a few days ago was approved as a miracle by my bishop, which is a beautiful thing,” said Mrs. Danila Castelli, who experienced the miracle on May 4, 1989 after visiting the baths in Lourdes.

Castelli said in an interview posted July 18, 2013 on the Lourdes Sanctuary’s YouTube channel that she wants to “thank Our Lady for all of the joy I’ve received, not just the joy of a healed body - which is also important because health is a gift of God and we have to protect it and ask for it, life is a gift - but the joy that Our Lord has given me throughout my entire life for as long as I can remember.”

 

[Porknpie]

Worthy of belief, but not mandatory. One does not have to believe in Fatima, Lourdes, or any other “apparition” or “miracle” for salvation.

This is true but at the same time prudence and reason lead us to give them due credence. From EWTN. Words of Pope Benedict below

Although an assent of Catholic faith may not be given to revelations thus approved, still, an assent of human faith, made according to the rules of prudence, is due them; for according to these rules such revelations are probable and worthy of pious credence. [De Serv. Dei Beatif.]

The Pope is saying that a Catholic, seeing that the Church (and here the Holy See is meant, as only it’s acts can be of universal effect) has investigated and approved certain revelations, is being prudent to give them human assent. That acceptance does not rest on the guarantee of Faith, or the charism of infallibility, but on the credibility of the evidence as it appeals to reason. The assent involved is not supernatural but the natural assent that the intellect gives to facts which it judges to be true. Approved private revelations are thus worthy of our acceptance and can be of great benefit to the faithful, for as the Catechism of the Catholic Church notes,

Guided by the Magisterium of the Church, the sensus fidelium knows how to discern and welcome in these revelations whatever constitutes an authentic call of Christ or his saints to the Church. [CCC 67]

 

[Della]

I didn’t say it was a trick by man, but possibly an optical illusion. That would be a natural phenomenon.

I addressed this point.

Not a knee-jerk reaction, but I look at the natural possibilities before I look for the supernatural. People who focus on the supernatural first can get fooled - and many do. In my 60 years - 37 as a Catholic - I have never seen a real miracle. But I’ve seen a number of sham miracles. Some were total frauds, others were well-meant but mistaken.

If you look for a natural possibility first, then you are right in line with the Church. That’s the first thing a bishop looks for, as well. I’m not talking about rosaries turning gold or weeping statues, here, but miracles that the Church has fully investigated and declared: “worthy of belief.” I’m in my 60s, too. I’m quite practical with my feet solidly on the ground, and I have never seen a miracle, either, but then I don’t necessarily expect to. Miracles are, by their nature, events that cannot be explained by natural causes. Those the Church approves are aids to our faith, but certainly not substitutes for it. I’m sorry about the knee jerk comment–it wasn’t meant for you in particular, but for those who simply won’t accept miracles at all.

I’m a convert, as it happens. I feel my becoming a Catholic is a miracle of God’s grace because there was a time in my life when I would rather have been put on the rack than become Catholic. God works in each of our lives to draw us to himself. Sometimes he uses miracles to do that–visible manifestations of his power, but most of the time he works quietly in our hearts and souls. Receiving God’s grace in the Sacraments and prayer life of the Church is enough for me, but some people need more than that, it seems. It’s up to God who is healed and why, so I leave all that in his hands.

 

[njlisa]

Just on a personal level, I have felt God intervene three times in my life in a way that I would refer to as miraculous. I live my life in great doubt, but I will say that I know for sure that God touched me these three times.

 

[Pete_Holter]

Augustine has a helpful discussion on miracles in On the Holy Trinity, Bk. 3, Chs. 5.11—9.19 beginning here.

And here are some of the miracle stories that he had collected in his own day: , Bk. 22, Ch. 8The City of God.

With love in Christ,
Pete

 

[laocmo]

Someone said regarding the Fatima sun phenomenon…" What man of the time could have pulled off such a trick? … No man of the time, but the original post suggested a being that was 100,000 years more advanced than the man of the time. Even today we have the technology to be thought of as a God to someone from 1917. Imagine that we could go back to a place as primitive as Fatima was, taking with us a DVD player, modern action movie DVD, and a 50 inch plasma TV. Gullible people would be writing that our demonstration was definitely due to God. Someone else said and reiterated that the real sun actually did spin and descend to Earth locally. But not astronomically to the rest of the world. This shows an abysmal lack of even basic scientific knowledge. They need a good course in basic college physics to see just how silly that statement is. As for Fatima in general, read the Fatima Trilogy found here. anomalistbooks.com/fatima-trilogy.cfm The set is rather expensive and will be very disturbing to believers, but might give you a completely new outlook on the subject if you have an open mind. But then an open mind on this forum is somewhat rare indeed.