Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 8:51pm

C&C Miracles

Written because during C&C Saints the issue of the certified miracles that are required to show that a Saint was in position to nag Himself in person, so to speak; that would require figuring out what a miracle is, and then what it takes, and even a basic summary is worth its own post.  So here’s a post, only slightly re-written.

Literally, it’s from the the Latin for “wonderful”. As we are using it, it’s close– wonder-workers, things done by supernatural power, specifically those things done by the power of God. There are several Greek terms at the link for specific meanings if anybody wants to go and break it out.

A miracle is a thing done by the power of God. An event in the natural world that is not of the natural world, so to speak.

A slight misunderstanding can enter because our culture is so very different from that of…well, pretty much any other time. It’s very easy for us to mistake someone doing a thing using someone else’s power for someone doing a thing under their own power– most of the examples we can think of outside of a religious context are government matters, be it an on-duty police officer acting as an agent of the law or a soldier acting as an agent of the country. Things like, say, the little boy at my daughter’s Sunday school who use to have leukemia, until the morning he came down and caught his mother crying because they’d run out of options.  He informed her that an angel had come in a dream and told him that he didn’t have it anymore… we don’t really have a strong analog for that kind of acting-as-the-authoritative-representative type of behavior. It was God’s doing, but it’s tempting– from what I’ve observed in our modern world-view, trying to contrast it to things I read about the past– to attribute the power to whoever you interact with; think of it like being grateful to the mailman when your grandmother sends you a lovely birthday gift.

On the flip side, there’s the temptation to go the over-attributing route– “every breath I take is a miracle.” It works as a way to get at a deeper meaning, in some cases, but it’s not the sort of “miracle” we’re talking about.

Some things I think were miracles are kind of silly– for example, my car’s brakes failed, quite suddenly. That sounds more like bad luck than anything good, much less a miracle, until I add that the brake light came on two blocks from the only mechanic I could possibly use, and that the next day I was starting a 300+ mile trip that was mostly mountain passes with stone wall on one side, and deadly drops on the other, and that the mechanic assured me it was impossible that I’d only felt anything odd with the brakes immediately before the light came on and I brought it in, because it was a slow leak. He turned a lovely shade of white when I told him where I was going to be driving the next day, though, and informed me that if I really hadn’t had the light come on until just then, I still would’ve known all about it on that trip….. While that may be a miracle, it’s rather hard to investigate and prove, which is a requirement for a miracle to be used for a cause of sainthood.

As C. S. Lewis said, a virgin birth is only identifiably miraculous if you know that virgins do not generally give birth.

So, there are miracles.  (Catholic Answers has a lovely tract on this, Do Miracles Still Occur?)  When the Church has sufficiently proven a miracle, it’s called being certified. I know that there’s probably someone simmering right now, because miracles can’t be proven. That may or may not be true, depending on what one means by “proving” and what assumptions are built in– for example, a while back I rolled my eyes as I scrolled past something or other on Facebook that was supposed to be dedicated to figuring out who Jesus’ human father was. If someone starts with the assumption that miracles can’t happen, that they’re impossible, then correct– you can’t prove a miracle. That’s not an argument, it’s a premise, a starting assumption. The complementary mistake is to assume that everything happens is through God’s intervention unless there’s an acceptable alternative. The Church uses, understandably enough, the standard of there being no natural explanation. An individual could also use a standard of there being no evidence of a natural explanation.

I’ll use the example of the kid who had leukemia, which handily enough is in the same class as most of the miracles used for saints’ causes these days, and tag them with how they’d view “proving” a miracle.

A Proving Impossible stance would be that the years of medical history the boy had were either incorrect– perhaps he didn’t have leukemia, or they missed all the signs of a more standard remission pattern, or there’s a currently unknown but totally natural cause of over-night leukemia remission in some cases that are so obscure we simply don’t have a large enough sample to identify the cause. This would be the stance of those who take a method of inquiry into reality as a total description of reality– usually self-identified as “scientific” or “rational” or, sometimes “skeptical.” As is probably clear even with my writing ability, I do not think highly of this, viewing it as an assertion that a road cannot exist because it’s not on the map.

A Proving Presumed stance would be that all remissions are miracles unless it was in predictable, direct response to a treatment.

A Proving Possible would hold that those remissions where a treatment just suddenly starts working, or works better than expected, might be a miracle.

A Proving Proof is what the Church uses, and it involves bugging the heck out of all the experts, especially very skeptical ones, to try to find any other explanation. It’s a matter of testing to try to find something that is definitely a miracle, not find stuff that could be a miracle, so that anyone who does an honest inquiry– asks the question and is willing to take yes for an answer– can believe.

Alright, so it’s definitely a miracle. Does that mean that I, as an observant, practicing Catholic, must believe in a specific miracle?

Big hint: apparitions are found “worthy of belief.”

Some miracles, we must believe in– like the Eucharistic Miracle. Transubstantiation– if you don’t believe that this is His body, then you’ve got a rather big problem.

We also must believe that miracles are possible, and identifiable as miracles, per the first Vatican Council– no wiggle room with being able to go “oh, miracles happen, but there’s no way we could really know for sure.” Look, if you check out that case of the girl who was born without pupils, who was– obviously– blind, but is objectively not blind after interaction with Padre Pio, and she still has no pupils, then you are really, really reaching, and should do some soul searching. (Gemma Di Giorgi, although obviously she’s a lady, now, not a girl. Yes, still alive.)

That said, these miracles are to aid for us to believe.  (Paging Catholic Answers again, on Private Revelation!) Unless a miracle has been explicitly taught by the justly applied power of the Church as requiring belief, you don’t have to believe it. I can find nothing that says a Decree of a Miracle– the thing needed for a miracle to “count” for sainthood– is binding, and it’s important to note that the saint being in heaven is what is stated infallibly in the case of sainthood, and they are required so someone can be canonized, it’s not automatic. Keeping with the whole “two sides” theme, if you find yourself hitting someone over the head to get them to accept even an approved miracle, it’s time for some soul searching on yourself.

Just like with the saints, the purpose is to bring us to God– not to become some little god in themselves.

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Philip
Philip
Monday, December 14, AD 2015 11:20am

“Big hint; apparitions are found “worthy of belief.”

Regarding sainthood, the scrutinies and investigations used to take much longer than the more recent declarations. Is that true in your opinion, or is it just the individual who is being investigated? Archbishop Fulton Sheen process and the struggle for his corpse to remain in NY v. Illinois, is a whole can of worms in itself.

paul coffey
paul coffey
Monday, December 14, AD 2015 11:26am

‘Just like with the saints, the purpose is to bring us to God– not to become some little god in themselves.’

…… another purpose is perhaps to give us that mouth dropping AWE as a reassuring jolt while we ‘run the race’ : that there is truly, a “Patrem omnipoténtem, factórem cæli et terræ, visibílium ómnium et invisibílium. especially the invisible.

Merry Christmas, Don McC, and all

cpola
cpola
Tuesday, December 15, AD 2015 7:42am

Of course in the absence (or the severe emasculation) of the office of the Devil’s Advocate the whole sainthood process is much faster than before, and indeed is something of a joke now.
Perhaps one day soon, someone will redo the whole canonizations done in the last 25 years or so.

Philip
Philip
Tuesday, December 15, AD 2015 8:36am

cpola.

Yes yes!
Let’s undo as all the past 20 years.
Forget the Miracles given, the graces bestowed, the prayers answered and the countless conversions All! Hey. Let’s treat the entire church since V2 as a huge mistake void of any good….then cpola, then enjoy your small elite elect. You got it right. Small barns small harvest. Eradicate the weeds as they grow along with the wheat… so what if the wheat gets pulled up while ripping out the weeds…..call it cpola way.

Mary De Voe
Tuesday, December 15, AD 2015 10:10am

The permission of God is necessary for the saints to appear and for the saints to work miracles. Mary said so, but I cannot point to the quote.

Philip
Philip
Tuesday, December 15, AD 2015 5:45pm

“The people who call John Paul II a catholic Saint will be given many lashes. The people who should know better, and still call John Paul II a Catholic Saint will be given the most number of lashes. The people who ignorantly call John Paul II a Catholic Saint will be given fewer lashes.”

In a paragraph following, in cpola’s most quoted site; popeleo13, then states that we must; “all be vigilant and alert as the enemies of the salvation of Christ seek always to plant the Weeds in the midst of the Wheat.”

This implication by cpola’s popeleo13 cherished site, blatantly accuses Saint Pope John II THE GREAT as being a sower of weeds.

Well then cpola.
If he was that evil in planting weeds then his fruit must be bad. I disagree with this.
His fruit is good. Divine Mercy is a blossom which is developing into the conversion of many souls. I’ve witness this in person with four different families in fifteen years of service. Satan does not want souls to come to Christ….or is that a bad fruit. Conversions are what…bad?

cpola.
Go pull more wheat. Good luck.
May you be fit to kiss the feet of the Saint you disgrace.

Howard
Howard
Wednesday, December 16, AD 2015 9:50am

Great article, Foxfier!

I think most miracles are messages to one person only. There is a very nice book by Ann Lawrence called BETWEEN THE FOREST AND THE HILLS in which the bishop ends up very frustrated because many events that he knows to be merely providential are counted as genuine miracles by his flock — miracles attributed to him, to his chagrin. When his faith begins to waiver and he cries out to God, he witnesses a Very Explicit Miracle — yet no one else notices. The message was for the bishop alone.

The recent haste to declare, for example, John Paul II a saint is *unseemly*, but that does not bring into question its *validity*. It’s more on par with an ugly, modern church building: it satisfies the minimal requirements, but we should expect better.

So yes, John Paul II is a saint, along with 81 other popes. His claim to be “THE GREAT” comes only from people like Philip, and I’m sorry, but that’s an extreme case of grade inflation. Can you HONESTLY imagine either Gregory the Great or Leo the Great kissing the Koran? Of course not! That, by the way, was a serious scandal in the proper sense of the word — maybe not for you or for me, but for Christians in the Middle East who have to pay a real price for rejecting the Koran in favor of the Gospel. John Paul II is a saint, but he made too many serious errors of judgment to be one of the handful called “the Great”.

Philip
Philip
Wednesday, December 16, AD 2015 11:40am

As for those who make a big deal out of the Saintly Pope kissing the Koran; Matthew 15:8-9: “These people honor me with there lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.”

Don’t kiss the Koran!

Oooohhh noooooo.

Prayers for this current pontiff are being said, over and over and over……
I’ll keep at it. Hope you will too.

cpola
cpola
Wednesday, December 16, AD 2015 2:35pm

Foxifier : “Just because it’s been a thousand years since a saint started being called “The Great” doesn’t invalidate the existing swell of general acclaim. Give it a few centuries, we’ll see if it sticks or not.”
.
There will be no few more centuries!
People are out there – DEMANDING IN PUBLIC – to have sex with people of the same gender, just as they did at Sodomy.
Read the signs of the times.
http://popeleo13.com/pope/2014/11/14/category-archive-message-board-175-jesus-end-time-hints/
http://popeleo13.com/pope/2014/12/29/category-archive-message-board-214-acceptable-year-of-the-lord/

cpola
cpola
Wednesday, December 16, AD 2015 2:37pm

There will be no few more centuries!
People are out there – DEMANDING IN PUBLIC – to have sex with people of the same gender, just as they did at Sodom and Gomorrah.
Read the signs of the times.
http://popeleo13.com/pope/2014/11/14/category-archive-message-board-175-jesus-end-time-hints/
http://popeleo13.com/pope/2014/12/29/category-archive-message-board-214-acceptable-year-of-the-lord/

Philip
Philip
Wednesday, December 16, AD 2015 3:29pm

cpola… soothsayer.

We have no positive way to know that; “There will be no few more centuries.”

Will a nation be chastised for it’s National sins? Yes. Will it be within this century? Guessing Yes!

Will the chastisement fall on a once Christian Nation that honored God by honoring the Son and Holy Spirit together? Three in one? Probably!

The guess that we will not have centuries left is just a guess. A better assessment is that it will be America that becomes the example.
Just as the chosen people were made an example of. The Church will take a beating but as long as it’s Christ’s Holy Church and as long as it takes for souls to be ready for His harvest, then the world as we know it will cease to exist.

I hope your call to all faithful Catholic’s will help in gaining souls to Christ, and fill his barns. I hope it doesn’t discourage souls from joining the Church because it’s leadership is flawed and has been stained since V2, possibly changing the minds of thirsty souls, changing the direction of finding the living Waters in the Holy Catholic Church, but now doubting the well since your opinion is less than favorable of the Popes since V2.

I take great relief in knowing that St. Pope John Paul the Great was without a doubt a prayerful and honest man. A man. Flawed and sinful but forgiven and merciful. A practitioner of Holy Catholic Church. A seminarian studying in clandestine times.
Threatened by two of the worse regime’s ever to come to existence on this earth. Nazism and Communism. He survived both.
He helped to collapse the latter, and was in a work camp of the former. He lived it.
He is great because God worked through him as a humble oppressed pole that had Great Faith. Great faith. Can that be disputed?
Sure……some will, but they do not know the man.

Peace to you cpola.
Peace.

cpola
cpola
Wednesday, December 16, AD 2015 4:30pm

People are out there – DEMANDING IN PUBLIC – to have sex with people of the same gender, just as they did at Sodom and Gomorrah.
.
The operative phrase: DEMANDING IN PUBLIC, Again: DEMANDING IN PUBLIC !
.
Give me a precedent in the history of humanity and then we can talk.

paul coffey
paul coffey
Wednesday, December 16, AD 2015 8:44pm

Howard, my understanding is popes are entitled ‘ great’ , not because they did not make errors like Assissi , Pray for John the Baptist to Protect that abomination of desolation Islam things that you i and many others who are by definition their lessers, think are errors,’
but Great because of their outstanding achievements and their lives of ‘ heroic’ virtue. Leo, Gregory, not Peter ……… I’ll leave it to higher pay grades to decide if JPII is a great or not- my dad suffered terribly under Jp’s weakness in making the Ancient Mass readily, easily available.

cpola
cpola
Thursday, December 17, AD 2015 4:49am

Foxifier, that was Plato philosophizing.
But I am talking about the precedent of a society of men demanding the right to have sex with people of the same gender in the context of other members of the society frowning at such acts as evil.
Not only do these people demand to have sex with persons of the same gender but they seek to lawfully and legally sanction those who reject or are opposed to such evil acts.
Now give me a precedent.
Otherwise what is happening now in our present world is the sign of the End-Time prophesied 2000 years ago by Our Lord Jesus.
And remember that this phenomenon is now on a global scale not just in one or two small parts of the globe.
In otherwords homosexuality (Sodomy) is to ancient Greece what cannibalism is to Papua New Guinea. But thanks be to God that cannibalism is not yet a phenomenon being DEMANDED IN PUBLIC by large swathes of humanity.

Philip
Philip
Thursday, December 17, AD 2015 5:04am

76crimes.com/76-countries-where-homosexuality-is-illegal

If locust was substituted for homosexuality, I’d say the days are shortening. The feeling that this plague is unstoppable. One thing.
God hasn’t given up on man…..yet.

Philip
Philip
Thursday, December 17, AD 2015 5:09am
Donald R. McClarey
Reply to  cpola
Thursday, December 17, AD 2015 5:59am

“But I am talking about the precedent of a society of men demanding the right to have sex with people of the same gender in the context of other members of the society frowning at such acts as evil.”

Among aristocratic Greeks it was expected in most city states that a nobleman would have another nobleman, a teenager, as a lover. The Sacred Band military unit of Thebes was made up of such pairs. Lower class Greeks did not engage in such conduct and apparently made jokes about it. Men who engaged in such conduct would go on and get married and raise families. The Greeks had no concept of homosexuals as a separate class. Sodomy between two adult males was looked down upon by the Greeks. Male prostitutes were a feature of some ancient pagan temples and bordellos, as there is nothing new under the sun regarding sexual perversion.

Pederasty in ancient Greece overall seems similar to that in prison today. Where women are absent, and among aristocratic families in Greece women were highly sheltered and men did not marry until their thirties, some men will look to each other. Some Greeks viewed the whole business as distasteful while others, including Plato attempted to elevate the business as superior to male women love. There was a fair amount of snobbishness in this, that pederasty could be looked upon as one more means by which aristocrats could separate themselves from the common herd. The Romans took all this as yet another sign that the Greeks were hopelessly decadent, although some of their aristocrats engaged in the vice.

Of course to the Jews this was all an abomination and we see some of their typical outrage in what Saint Paul has to say on the subject.

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