CHAPTER 18
MIRACLES Sacred Scripture is bulging with reports of miracles. There is the creation story of our universe from nothing; the creation of life itself; prophets performing miracles; and Jesus forgiving sins, instantly healing people from lifelong diseases, raising people from the dead, and having authority over nature (for example, calming of the storm). But are these accounts just a conglomeration of fables? Do they merely point to the creativity and power of imagination of story tellers? Is it true that natural law rules out divine action? Throughout this chapter we will explore what miracles are, and whether in fact God could or would be active in our cosmos, or even in our very lives.
We are faced with the possibility that if God created the world, set the laws of nature in motion, then He could actually be made redundant if He hasn’t already retired. Like the watchmaker analogy He could have set us ticking and then left us to our own devices, leaving the world to exist by setting the laws of nature in motion; having no desire to intervene. Did God leave us to fight for our own survival or does He care about our lives and so acts in our world?
To the nonbeliever the concept of miracles is irrational, and even for Christians it can be a struggle since there is no obvious divine intervention in every occasion we ask God for help in our prayers. Regarding the way some understand the concept of miracles it even seems like God is interfering or breaking the laws of nature.
Macroevolution – A New Religion? In 1959 Julian Huxley, Thomas Huxley’s grandson, and one of the prominent speakers at the Darwinian Centennial, declared that supernatural religion was finished and that a new religion of evolutionary humanism based on science would soon become the worldwide religion.
Was Huxley right? Has evolution become a new religion and made all other religions superfluous? Though neo-Darwinism has crept into the fabric of society, is proclaimed through science, education, and the media, it has also crept into some religions, devouring people’s understanding of truths like a virus devouring healthy cells. Because science has no place for values neoDarwinism proclaims that we have no special place in the universe and that we should have no prominence over other creatures.
Neo-Darwinism has caused many to lose their faith as they have been told that evolution is not co-existent with a belief in a Creator. As a result they have lost their trust and love of God.
Many people put their faith in the concept of neo-Darwinism without studying it in-depth. Such a comprehensive study reveals differences between micro and macroevolution and also between a theistic and atheistic view of macroevolution. Ironically one and a half centuries after Huxley’s atheistic outburst the majority of the world believes in a Creator (In 2009 there were about 2.15 billion Christians, 1.3 billion Muslims, 880 million Hindus, etc); the major religions such as Christianity and Islam, which proclaim a living God who created us, are still very much alive. It is the neoDarwinists and atheists who are in fact the minority.
Free Will There is a better image to use than the watchmaker concept, the concept of a loving parent. Loving parents will reveal their wishes to their children and guide them in the right way to live. But is not God even more capable to do so in our lives? He is the source of love and truth. Like a loving parent He respects our free will. Therefore He loves us but does not always love what we do.
This Creator of the universe respects our free will unconditionally
– He may not want us to disobey Him, but He allows us to. Like a loving parent who has to eventually let go of His children God nudges us, but simultaneously respects our free will. It is only a nudge to say, ‘Hey I’m here. I love you!’ He invites us to spend time with Him. At times God has to let go of His embracing and guiding us because we turn away from Him. But He never stops loving us as we walk the path of life.
God is longing for us to search for Him, and His abundant love. His love is unfailing – it is eternal. It is when we invite Him into our hearts, and ultimately our whole life, that He is able to assist us in our lives. But God never stops honouring our free will. Bit by bit we can allow Him free reign in our hearts; the more we allow Him and His love to transform us, the more we are fulfilled as we learn who we are meant to be, and so fully human.
It’s as if there is an anti-body type (perfect shape) hole in our heart. But though we may try to fill this hole with all sorts of things – to fill this chasm some people take drugs, abuse alcohol, or abuse sex. But there is ultimately one perfect shape which will fill this chasm, and that is God’s love. All the other apparent forms of love may temporarily plug parts of the chasm, but they are not a perfect match. St Augustine says:
Late have I loved you, O Beauty so ancient and so new; late have I loved you! For behold you were within me, and I outside; and I sought you outside and in my ugliness fell upon those lovely things that you have made. You were with me and I was not with you.1
Do Miracles Violate the Laws of Nature? What I mean by a miracle is the special manifestation of God’s power. Often it is a visible one and other times it is invisible. These miracles are not superficial but something that may go beyond the laws of nature, for example, the instantaneous cure of someone ravaged by cancer.
So miracles don’t violate the laws of cause and effect but can merely transcend nature. Also, as a friend postulated some miracles could be the result of God speeding up or slowing down atoms. For example, this would allow Jesus and Peter to walk on water. Also the instantaneous cure of someone with cancer could be the speeding up of atoms in the healthy cells to destroy the cancerous ones. Other visible manifestations of God’s power include the raising of the dead. How can one use science to explain such a marvel? This would take more than the speeding up of atoms for such an incredible miracle. There have been instances whether biblical or conducted by saintly men or women praying for someone who by all accounts is dead but after prayer they are brought back to life.
Translated from the Latin, miracle means to marvel or wonder. Therefore a miracle should lead us to marvel or wonder at God who manifests His power for our good.
Jesus’s Miracles With Jesus’s miracles it could be argued that the witnesses were not doctors, or professionals of medicine but just common folk. However, as important, if not more so is that the miracles were magnificent and striking: someone who could not see since birth was given the gift of sight; people with leprosy were cured; a haemorrhaging woman was cured; and Jesus actually raised someone from the dead. The last miracle, though very rare had been performed by prophets such as Elijah (1 Kings 17:22) and Elisha (2 Kings 4:34-35). The writers of the New Testament knew that these were miracles because they were so out of this world – they defied the rational, and were mostly instantaneous. They also knew that the miracles corroborated that Jesus was the Messiah.
Miracles Investigated Painstakingly by the Church When it comes to miracles, the Catholic Church is one of the most stringent religious institutions. She uses a strict criterion to authenticate a miracle; allowing panels of doctors, including atheists and agnostics to examine and question the patient claiming to have been cured. Defying popular belief the Church has not been over-zealous to prove instances of the miraculous. On the contrary, it has been very prudent to ensure that no stone is left unturned as to whether ulterior motives are involved, such as the perpetration of a hoax or alternatively someone has mistaken a normal phenomenon as a miracle. The faithful are usually the ones that passionately want a miracle declared, but they are kept waiting for many years until the Church authenticates or does not uphold such a claim.
While the Church upholds particular miracles encouraging the faithful to believe, there is not the obligation for Catholics to do so. But when one explores the reality of the miracle and its magnitude then one can be left in awe that our Creator manifests His awesome power according to His loving purpose.
Thousands of miracles have been claimed by those visiting a famous pilgrimage site in Lourdes, France; over 7,000 reported healings have been recorded as a result and only 68 of these
have been authenticated as miracles by The Lourdes Medical Bureau and the Church. These miracles were instantaneous healings, complete and lasting; the person is rechecked yearly by doctors and former sick patients appear before The Lourdes Medical Bureau every year. The bureau receives annually, ‘more than 2,000 doctors of all nationalities, upon whose demand, whatever their beliefs, the office gives free access to all their records. Its works are supervised by an international medical committee’.2
There have also been hundreds of thousands of examples of another type of miracle, such as the conversion of people visiting these pilgrimage sites. These are invisible manifestations of God’s power and include examples of people who were bitter and couldn’t forgive, then were not only able to forgive and trust Jesus, but received incredible peace from Jesus and strength to survive very difficult situations. Many went to Lourdes and other pilgrimage sites begging God for a physical healing, but returned with a spiritual healing which many profess was better than a physical one.
The Greatest Miracle The incarnation, virgin birth, and Jesus overcoming death through His resurrection are all wonderful manifestations of God’s power. I believe God has given us the greatest miracle which has been with us since Jesus instituted the Eucharist, His Body and Blood. God displays His power invisibly so that the substance of the Eucharist becomes the Body and Blood of Christ. The word substance here means what it is. So it is a miracle that it is no longer bread, but is the Body of the Lord through a special display of God’s power, even though our senses tell us otherwise.
Either Catholics, Orthodox and some Anglicans are mad, or we are following God’s will in how we relate to the Eucharist. These major denominations believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Though many Anglicans believe in the Real Presence, it is still debatable whether they have the Apostolic Succession (see Born to be Free or a pamphlet on the subject at www.kiwig.com) and thus the God given authority to change the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ.
Some Christian denominations teach that the Eucharist or Holy Communion was meant by Christ to be merely symbolic. But the Catholic Church teaches that it points to a deeper reality as well as being active because it brings about what it signifies. For example, it points to a union of self, God and others and brings about that union.
The Eucharist has three aspects: Real Presence, Sacrifice and Communion. ‘As Real Presence, the Eucharist is Christ in his abiding action of High Priest, continuing to communicate the graces he merited on Calvary; and as Communion, it is Christ coming to enlighten and strengthen the believer by nourishing his soul for eternal life.3
Grace brings us to the altar, to celebrate as a community the life, death, resurrection and glorification of Christ. As Church we are nourished spiritually by the communion with the Triune God and the uniting of heaven and earth. God commands us to eat His Body and Drink His Blood (John 6). From our response our unity is enhanced as we celebrate with one purpose and the presence and action of Christ which brings about our unity. We offer our lives, ourselves to be united to the will of the Father. Christ’s grace also strengthens us, forgives venial (small) sins and bestows God’s love on us. Therefore the Eucharist signifies forgiveness, growth and love.
Many of us have questioned why the appearance of the host does not change or why our senses do not pick up any change. St Cyril of Jerusalem was born in AD 315 and consecrated as Bishop of Jerusalem in AD 348. Either he or his successor attributes it to faith:
Do not, therefore, regard the Bread and the Wine as simply that; for they are, according to the Master’s declaration, the Body and Blood of Christ. Even though the senses suggest to you the other, let faith make you firm. Do not judge in this matter by taste, but – be fully assured by your faith, not doubting that you have been deemed worthy of the Body and Blood of Christ.4
Though the taste does not change, we are to have faith and believe in it, precisely because Christ Himself said it would be. Are we calling Him a liar?
Mysteries As there are mysteries that mankind has uncovered regarding science, there have been mysteries that God has revealed regarding religion, spiritual mysteries. It is possible to fully comprehend what was once scientific mysteries, but religious mysteries are much deeper because the more we study them we will never come to fully understand them. They are to be explored and contemplated, not solved. The mystery of God as well as the human person is unlimited. Mysteries continually invite one to a fuller understanding and so are dynamic. Our understanding of a mystery can change. It doesn’t mean we change the mystery to suit ourselves, but that our interpretation of a mystery may develop. It doesn’t mean necessarily chucking out old ideas but often building on the old with new insights. It is our interpretation of the mysteries of God that change. For example the notion that God is Trinity and thus three persons in communion with one another will not change. But our interpretation of the life of the Trinity is open to development. The term, Trinity was not even developed until Tertullian did so in the fourth century. We understand that the Trinity dwells in our hearts as a result of Baptism.
God reveals different depths of the revelation that He has already given to His Church. He does this through His Word, the Church Councils, the Pope and also through the Prophets and Saints. I would like to challenge you to start reading the writings of the Church Councils, Saints and papal encyclicals and dive into the beautiful depths and rich understanding of the mysteries.5
Matthias Scheeben, a 19th century theologian attributes the mysteries of God to being the revelation of ‘the deepest mysteries locked up in God’s heart’.6 He also questions whether God upon sending His Spirit, who dwells in God, should reveal anything new, great, wondrous or sublime.
Yes God has taught us many amazing and sublime secrets. He has chosen to reveal more of the depth of the mystery (sacrament) of the Holy Eucharist through many Saints. The greatest Saints of the Church had a deep faith in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. It is from studying the writings of these men and women who loved God and triumphed over sin, that we can be inspired by their love of Christ in the Eucharist, and they can show us that we too can have that faith. Scheeban illustrates that the mysteries of the Church are essential to such a faith:
Far from repudiating Christianity or regarding it with suspicious eyes because of its mysteries, we ought to recognize its divine grandeur in these very mysteries. So essential to Christianity are its mysteries that in its character of truth revealed by the Son of God and the Holy Spirit it would stand convicted of intrinsic contradiction if it brought forward no mysteries. It’s author would carry with Him a poor recommendation for His divinity if He taught us only such truths as in the last analysis we could have learned from a mere man, or could have perceived and adequately grasped by our own unaided powers.7
If we could only learn from mere man, we would not be able to encounter the sense of wonder, the dawning of light as the truth begins to take root in us, and the sense of love and joy shining forth as we accept and encounter Christ’s Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist.
Faith of the Early Church Belief in the Eucharist has withstood the test of time as this core belief has not changed in the Catholic and Orthodox Churches since Jesus instituted it at the Last Supper. One of the earliest Christians to write about the Eucharist being the actual Body and Blood of Christ was St Ignatius of Antioch, the third Bishop of Antioch (after St Evodius who was the immediate successor of St Peter, the apostle). Ignatius died about AD 110. In his letter to the Philadelphians he writes:
Take note of those who hold heterodox opinions on the grace of Jesus Christ which has come to us, and see how contrary their opinions are to the mind of God. For love they have no care, nor for the widow, nor for the orphan, nor for the distressed, nor for those in prison or freed from prison, nor for the hungry and thirsty. They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the Flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, Flesh which suffered for our
sins and which the Father, in His goodness, raised up again.8
These people are devoid of love for those who Christ commanded us to love. Furthermore they do not recognise nor love Christ in the Eucharist. Loving others is a fruit of loving Christ in the Eucharist; because Christ gives Himself selflessly in the Eucharist we too are called to give of ourselves to others, sharing the love of Christ.
St Ignatius is affirming that the Eucharist is the Flesh of Jesus Christ. He gives us even more concrete testimony of his belief in the power of the Eucharist: ‘I have no taste for corruptible food nor for the pleasures of this life. I desire the Bread of God [John 6:32-33,51] which is the Flesh of Jesus Christ, who was of the seed of David; and for drink I desire His Blood, which is love incorruptible’9; and he calls to use one Eucharist, ‘for there is one Flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup in the union of His Blood’.10
The evidence now becomes even more robust with the writings of other early Church Fathers. St Justin the Martyr, who lived from about 100 until 165 AD (beheaded for his faith in Christ), reveals his belief in union with the Catholic Church that the Eucharist is the real Flesh of Christ. The following though written over 1800 years ago, sounds very much like what you would experience at a Catholic Mass today:
Having concluded the prayers, we greet one another with a kiss [now a handshake is given as the sign of peace]. Then there is brought to the president [priest or bishop] of the brethren bread and a cup of water and of watered wine [Matthew 25:39]; and taking them, he gives praise and glory to the Father of all, through the name of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; and he himself gives thanks at some length in order that these things may be deemed worthy.
When the prayers and the thanksgiving are completed, all the people present call their assent, saying, ‘Amen!’ Amen in the Hebrew language signifies so be it. After the president has given thanks, and all the people have shouted their assent, those whom we call deacons give to each one present to partake of the Eucharist bread and wine and water; and to those who are absent they carry away a portion [now this is done as ministry to the sick]. We call this food Eucharist; and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who believes our teaching to be true and who has been washed in the washing [Baptism] which is for the remission of sins and for regeneration, and is thereby living as Christ has enjoined.11
God: Fact or Fiction?: Exploring the Relationship Between Science Religion and the Origin of Life Page 26
