Expert: Marco - 6/23/2006

Question
I am interested about miracles.
I believe miracles can happen today and many people troughout their lives have seen them or heard of them
My question is:
Are there rules about who can receive a miracle?
Do you have to ask for it or it is something granted?
Who gives the gift of a miracle? God, Jesus, the holy Spirit, Mary, the Saints, all of them can give it?

Thanks,

Carlos

Answer
Dear Carlos,

there is no rule about who can receive a miracle.
God is the One who gives the gift of a miracle, but God can give a miracle also because of the intercession and prayer of a Saint.
I think that the most extraordinary recent miracle is the miracle of Fatima.
On the 13-10-1917 more than 70000 people saw the sun dance in the sky, change color, and then fall down and coming up to its normal place; these facts lasted for about ten minutes and were saw not only from the 70000 people at Fatima, but also from people living in the villages around Fatima.
Among those people there were also many atheist journalists from some anticlerical journals,
who were there in order to discredit the religious  “superstitions” of catholicism, since the child Lucia said that on that day God would have given a great sign for everybody.
In fact, since 1910, the portuguese government had started a very hard battle against the Catholic Church: many religious orders were expelled and their property confiscated, new legislation banned the teaching of religion in schools and universities and annulled many religious holidays. Persecution of Catholics in the early years of the republic attracted international attention and brought the new political system into conflict with foreign diplomats, humanitarian organizations, and journalists.

Those journalists have written very detailed accounts of the facts occurred at Fatima ,
which were reported on all newspapers in the world, including the New York Times.  
Among the journalists present at Fatima on October 17, there was  the (atheist) director Avelino de Almeida of the government (and very antireligious) newspaper "O Seculo”. The article, published with the title "Terrifying Event! How The Sun Danced In The Sky Of Fatima"  can be found on the site

www.ewtn.com/fatima/apparitions/October.htm

In his article, the journalist describes a crowd of biblical dimensions, spread in the fields of Fatima. At a certain point, this immense crowd begins to cry "Miracle! Miracle!" looking at the sun. The journalists describes then an amazed crowd, who cry and pray.
I have tried to analyse these data to see whether it was possible to find a plausible explanation, excluding a divine intervention, but I have found none. No scientifically acceptable explanations exist for such a phenomenon.
I do not think it is reasonable to hypothesize a conspiracy of 70000 people, simulating a collective vision. On the other hand, it would not have been possible to hypnotize such a crowd, spread on an area of some square kilometers. Besides it is scientifically impossible, even with the present technology (you can imagine with the technology available in 1917!), to realize an optical illusion like that.
Some atheists try to explain this miracle as a banal optical effect; when we look at the sun for a while, we see coloured pulsating spots, or when the clouds move in the sky, they can create the illusion that the sun is moving.
Obviously, we all know this, we all have looked at the sun and we all know the effects, we all have seen the clouds moving in the sky. Those who were at Fatima certainly knew this as well.
So, unless we hypothesize that at Fatima there were only 70000 idiots, such explanation is not plausible at all.
Some then speak about hysterism or suggestion. However, if catholics were all subject to hysteric crisis or they were so easily suggestionable, one couldn't explain why in 2000 years of catholicism there are no other cases of crowds witnessing to having seen such extraordinary phenomena. Actually, there was only the word of three children, and if this was sufficient to suggestionize so  much catholics, then whoever claims to have some visions of Our Lady, could easily make a crowd of 70000 catholics to see the sun dancing in the sky.

The miracle of Fatima is the most extraordinary and well recorded miracle in all history. This miracle has occurred in the Catholic Church, since the three children were catholics (Lucia, the only one of the three children still alive is a catholic nun).
The fact that so many people saw these phenomena cannot be explained
without the hypotesis of a supernatural being, because neither science nor
logic would allow something like that to happen.
Besides these facts occured exactly in the day and the place indicated several monthes before by the child Lucia. Neither science nor logics can explain the capacity to foresee the future.

A brief and incomplete description of the supernatural facts occurred at Fatima can be found also in some contemporary encyclopedias, for example the Britannica (also available on internet at www.britannica.com)
gives at the voice Fatima :

village and sanctuary, Vila Nova de Ourém municipality, Santarém district, central Portugal; it is located on the tableland of Cova da Iria, 18 miles (29 km) southeast of Leiria. Fátima was named for a 12th-century Moorish princess and since 1917 has been one of the greatest Marian shrines in the world, visited by thousands of pilgrims annually. On May 13, 1917, and in each subsequent month until October of that year, three young peasant children, Lucia dos Santos and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto, reportedly saw a lady who identified herself as the Lady of the Rosary. On October 13, a crowd (generally estimated at about 70,000) gathered at Fátima witnessed a “miraculous solar phenomenon” immediately after the lady had appeared to the children.


The fundamental role of miracles in the history of Christianity cannot be doubted.
The miracles done by Jesus proved that He was the Messiah, and the miracles done by the apostoles proved that they were really sent by Christ.

Miracles still happen within the catholic church.
In the following site the 66 official miracles occured at Lourdes are described.
The miracolous nature of these healings have been scientifically proved

http://www.catholic-forum.com/catholicteacher/lourdescontents.html


Other interesting sites

http://www.fatima.org/miracle1.html

http://www.therealpresence.org/eucharst/mir/lanciano.html

http://www.sancta.org/eyes.html


I hope this may help,

your brother in Christ,

Marco

PS I think that faith cannot come only from logic, because to have faith in God means to trust and love God.
I think however that logics and science prove the existence of our soul and the existence of  God and that there are many rational arguments strongly supporting the christian faith.
The explanation of these aguments is rather long and the site does not allow me to give long answer. You can find such arguments  the following site

http://xoomer.virgilio.it/fedeescienza/englishnf.html

where  I analyse the incongruencies of the materialistic conception of the mind, on the basis of our present scientific knowledges about brain and matter.
This analysis points out how the laws of physics  prove that the   brain cannot generate consciousness, which existence implies  the presence in man of a unbiological/unmaterial element. The problem of consciousness is then strictly connected to the one of the existence of the soul and, consequently, the existence of God.
In the first article entitled “Mind and brain...” you can find a general discussion of the mind and brain problem from a scientific point of view.
In the second article entitled “Scientific contraddictions in materialism”
you  can find an explanation of the fundamental inconsistencies of  the  typical arguments used by materialists, such as the concept of emergent, macroscopic or holist property, complexity, information, etc.
In the section called “FAQ: answers to  visitors' questions” you can find the answer to many typical questions, such as "Are there any scientifically proved miracles?", "Does the existence of the universe imply the existence of God?", "Can science explain God?", "Can science establish which is the true religion?", "Can science explain consciousness in the future?", and many others.