July starts tomorrow, the month dedicated by the Church to devotion to the Precious Blood of Jesus. As such, I thought I'd finally follow up on my Eucharist posts with an article about Eucharistic Miracles.
Back when I wrote my series about the Eucharist, I had planned to follow it up with a few articles about those phenomena in the history of the Church when Jesus had gone even beyond the great miracle of Transubstantiation, in order to provide tangible proof of His Real Presence in the Eucharist. I own a book (which I lent to someone and have yet to get back), which catalogues and summarises over 100 Church-approved Eucharistic Miracles, and was hoping to use it as a springboard for the series. However, I've discovered that the contents of the entire book are available online, as well as other goodies, at The Real Presence Association's website. I very much encourage you to check out this website, and the various miracles recorded there.
In particular, please read Monsignor Raffaello Martinelli's essay explaining what a Eucharistic Miracle is (and, importantly, what it's not!). As well, if all 100+ miracles are a bit daunting to you, dear reader, I would especially encourage you to check out the Eucharistic Miracle of Lanciano (and part 2), one of the earliest, most dramatic, most scientifically-researched Eucharistic miracles of all--and one that still exists after nearly 1300 years!
People often accuse Christians of accepting their beliefs based on blind faith. Eucharistic Miracles show that, to the contrary, God provides evidence for us from time to time! An atheist friend with whom I used to work once asked, "If God wants us all to believe in Him, why doesn't He give us some proof?" When I showed him the book of Eucharistic Miracles, and in particular, the Miracle of Lanciano, he replied, "I dunno. Seems kinda like a dog-and-pony show." It's not Christians who believe on blind faith; it's sceptics who disbelieve on blind faith!
To whet your appetite to check out the above website, I've included a two-part presentation on YouTube:
The first Eucharistic Miracle presented in the video is that of Lanciano, linked above. The second one is that of Bolsena (and part 2). The third is the one which I linked to back at the beginning of the Eucharist series, and can be found here.
God bless,
Gregory
(Category: Catholic Distinctives: Sacraments--The Eucharist)
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Eucharistic Miracles
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4 comments:
"People often accuse Christians of accepting their beliefs based on blind faith. Eucharistic Miracles show that, to the contrary, God provides evidence for us from time to time! An atheist friend with whom I used to work once asked, "If God wants us all to believe in Him, why doesn't He give us some proof?" When I showed him the book of Eucharistic Miracles, and in particular, the Miracle of Lanciano, he replied, "I dunno. Seems kinda like a dog-and-pony show." It's not Christians who believe on blind faith; it's sceptics who disbelieve on blind faith!"
I know I told you I wasn't going to write in to this article, but my feral nature was gnawing at me.
I'll attempt to be brief, since I have to put my kids to bed in 9 minutes.
First, this miracle is far from proved. Noting that there is meat and blood in a chalice is not proof that a miracle took place.
You mentioned in our Facebook chat that each of the 7 globules of blood are different sizes, and different weights, but when weighed together weigh the same as a single globule (or something like that). I have found no peer-reviewed journals confirming such a violation of physics, and I've been searching the web for a little while now. This is not to say they don't exist (I can't logically prove that what is absent doesn't exist), but it is a strong suggestion that perhaps there is a little more legend than truth surrounding that aspect of the alleged miracle.
Second, the Church is not innocent to the practice of making stuff up to support its status as the the arbiter of truth on earth. In matters politic, the Church has been just as crooked as its secular counterparts. I see no reason why this alleged miracle at Lanciano couldn't fit the status of a lie.
What would such a lie benefit the Church? Quite simply: notoriety. Ignatius appealed to the authority of the bishops and the succession of Peter as his proof against the Gnostics. It was simply his word against theirs, and his word was victorious. In the same regard, this alleged miracle at Lanciano could simply be a well-crafted story used to bolster public status for the Church: if Jesus really did miraculously confirm his on-going existence to an obscure priest suffering from doubts (which is a psychologically healthy state of mind, by the way), that would go a long way in cinching public favour, and possibly on-going tithes.
All conjecture, I realise, but far more believable than citing an omnipotent, yet, strangely, sneak-about God who can't muster-up the wherewithal to appear to everyone everywhere, all at once and dispel all concerns about his existence in the first place.
The Greeks had all sorts of proofs of God's existence, too. All sorts of legendary tales of his co-mingling with human beings, especially women. There's no reason we shouldn't consider those tales of miracles to be on the same level as a piece of meat in a glass.
Anyway, all that to say that your so-called evidences are not convincing because they are anecdotal, not verifiable. And citing a hunk of flesh is not the miracle I'm referring to: I'm referring to the transformation of bread and wine into meat and blood. It cannot be demonstrated, has not been repeated, and defies what we know about material reality. If such a thing really did happen, it'd probably garner a whole lot more attention in history than the second-class (at best) status it has enjoyed these past 1200 years.
To be continued...
Continued...
Third, disbelief is not a faith-claim, much less a blind one. It is a rejection of a faith-claim. It is an absence of belief in the supernatural. A disbeliever is not believing on blind-faith that there is not a supernatural reality to have faith in. What a massive conflation!
This is not to say that believers are irrational; they are quite rational, overall. But they also have this add-on category of 'belief' in a transcendent reality that the materialist disbeliever does not. The materialist disbeliever can point to reality as a self-evident property of existence. The believer cannot point to any transcendent reality by virtue (vice?) of the fact that it is not knowable in plain reality. Thus its transcendence. As such, the believer has to claim a brute category such as 'faith' in order to have anything meaningful to say about something he cannot measure. In effect, he has no way of detecting any transcendent reality so he has no other recourse but to believe on blind-faith. On the other hand, the disbeliever has only to experience his senses and measure phenomena to qualify what is evident to both the disbeliever and believer alike. Reality is evident and knowable; transcendent "reality" is not knowable or even slightly evident. Thus the disbeliever has no need of faith in such metaphysical claims as the theologian is wont to put out. He is, essentially, not all-knowing about material reality, but also not claiming a faith-based disbelief in an abstracted, transcendent reality. That is the providence of the believer.
Cheers!
Kane
It's a whole lot easier to have a debate when there's two participants. ;)
It's a lot easier to participate when you're in the country, and not at a big youth conference in the States! I'm home now, so once I'm settled in, I should have something to say this week.
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