Are Miracles for Real?

                                                                                                                               

I’m not trying to convert my son, nor I hope that his new girlfriend will be able to that any time soon. I just  hope he will understand that the professional atheists he admires so much are far from being always right. 

For example, the British journalist Christopher Hitchens (who died last year, may he rest in peace) reported

in "God Is Not Great" that the Vatican scandalously claims phony miracles pursuing the proclamation of new saints. 

Hitchens writes that he was invited by the Vatican to testify as a critic at a hearing on the beatification of Mother Teresa. He suggests that, although the priests seemed to ask for his opinion in good faith, the process was a mere farce, for Mother Teresa was beatified in spite of his negative testimony. In his mind, the Vatican should have listened to him only, overlooking the rest of Mother Teresa exceptional life. Poor lad, those priests didn’t take him seriously! But how could they when even I, a nobody in religious matters,

can easily unveil his partiality?

Miracles don’t have to subvert the laws of nature. Something that might look as a fortunate coincidence to an atheist may very well be a God willed event, and that was the case in which Hitchens was involved. But of course, the Vatican wouldn’t consider such an event as proof of holiness.  The Church is very cautious in accepting miracles as truthful. In The Book of Miracles,  Kenneth Woodward testifies that for decades he personally observed the Vatican’s canonization process for various causes of saints. Whoever thinks that the Vatican looks for chances to impose holy figures on the public is making a wrong assumption. 

Since the twelfth century, the Church gradually developed a legal process of investigation to avoid that the

cult of saints would obliterate the worship of God and Jesus. Miracles worked during the lifetime of the candidate do not constitute a reason for sainthood. Catholics, in fact, believe that the devil can work miracles too, so what matters is if the life of the candidate was a pious life.

Once the Vatican has collected enough proof that he or she led a holy existence, posthumous miracles are taken into serious consideration, for the holy person is supposed to be in heaven with God in order to intercede for people on earth. Tools of modern science and medical technology are employed and a dossier is prepared by Vatican officials, which is reviewed by sixty medical consultants. Cancers with high rates of remission are excluded and the healing of the disease must be instantaneous.

Of course all the above doesn't prove that miracles are operated by God, but it does indicate, in my opinion, that there is communication between the living and the dead. Psychosomatic diseases show that there is a definite connection between body and mind, where the mind can cause the disease. Nevertheless, I don't believe that terminally ill people could think themselves back to health, except if they had spiritual power of their own, which can't be the case for every healing allegedly performed by saints. Modern scientific studies have shown that we actually have the ability to affect the external world and our physical self through the power of our emotions, but to what extent? Could we cause the disappearance of a tumor overnight, if

we truly believe that it’s possible? I don‘t think so.  The saint is the one who was known for  possessing healing power in life, so he or she is probably the one who works the miracle when called for by the sick person. The latter, however, must have total faith in him. 

Is the saint pleading with God on behalf of the ill person or is he operating on his own? To answer this

question I have to put my faith in Jesus. He said that we have a Father in heaven who loves us all, and I believe him.

                                                                                                                              

Family Interaction in Faith

This is what Jesus had to say concerning family ties:

“Whoever loves father and mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son and daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”

We can read Jesus statement in the context of our endurance for sorrow. Would we turn against God if something happened to our loved ones? If instead we would ask for help, maybe we would feel less alone. 
I can almost hear the answer I would have given a few years ago to what I’ve just said: How could an abstract entity help us face the pain? Why should we fool ourselves with heavenly tales? But today I suggest that we try to ask for inner strength. I don’t know how it happens, but we’ll become stronger.                                                                  

As I’ve said before, my father lost all his possessions because of wrong investments in Yemen. It was very difficult for my mom to adapt to the new situation, and she was never able to renounce all her habits. I couldn’t help but finding her a little immature, although she had a big heart and was a good mother. She was the only one in my family who was professing religion, and this is one of the reasons why I never took it seriously. Even as a teen-ager, I thought that if my mother believed in the gospels, they were probably fairy tales.

My father, on the other hand, never spoke about faith. He used to accompany my mom to mass every 

Sunday, but he never ventured inside the church. Instead, he waited for her at the café’ across the street. 

We children were definitely getting mixed signals. At any rate, we were the rebellious type, and I’m sure that 

if both our parents had tried to talk us into  going to church we would have refused flatly. But later in life, 

both my brother and my sister became devout Christians. I started wondering if I was the only one left in the 

family who wasn’t religious, so one day I asked my dad if he believed in God.

"Absolutely", was his laconic reply. He never said another word about it.

Now I wonder how my son sees my sudden interest in Jesus. I’m afraid that I’m not a better role model to 

him than my mother was to me, although for different reasons. Some time ago he said to me:

“You didn’t know how to live. Religion is for people like you, who can’t cope with life.”

“You’re right,” I answered, “I couldn’t take a hold of my life. But this should make you understand how 

powerful the encounter with Jesus has been for me. I hated myself because your father and I were making 

you suffer, yet I was unable to change our interaction for years. Now you can see that I’m different.”

                                                                                                                                  

I suspect that today he understands that being good is a pattern among Christians. He fell for a catholic girl!

Jesus as a Tangible Presence

If I may, I would like to say a word of encouragement to those who are having difficulties keeping their faith alive.                                                                                                                                             

The line between the perception of Jesus as present here and now or as an abstract entity is often blurred. There are going to be moments when you are distracted by your everyday life, and in those moments, if you are inclined to doubt, you’ll think that you are pursuing something that is not real, not even in your heart. If you wish to overcome your fear of self-deception, don’t try to force your mind to some kind of transcendent experience, because you might still doubt its authenticity. Instead, look at how Jesus has affected your life. If you have learned to be compassionate, if you are resilient in the face of adversities, if you are more joyful, then you can recognize his presence from a rational point of view. You want to keep your dignity as a rational being, and you can do that by paying attention to your responses to the world. If they are changing, he’s with you. Open your mind, don’t be afraid of being deceived by your own feelings.

Jesus said: “I’ll be with you, always,” and if you give yourself time, you’ll perceive  him not as someone who lived long ago and is separate from you by the barrier of time, but as someone who is sharing your life. St. Augustine said that he is more interior to you than you are to yourself.                                                                                 

If you have an intuition of a reality beyond the material one, don’t dismiss it. Don’t be afraid of having to give up too much if you follow this path and it leads to Jesus, because you’ll gain instead. He said that his yoke is light. If you open your heart to him, you’ll see that God is not so hidden after all, nor He intends to be. You can listen to Him through Jesus’ words. 

Love has an enormous healing power, and the first ones to be healed will be you. I wish my son could be healed too. He’s afraid of death, terrified at the idea of dissolving into nothingness. Some time ago he told me:

"I hope that you’re right about the afterlife, I hope we are going to go on living. But if we meet up there, I’ll keep telling you that your way of reasoning was wrong, because you believed in God without evidence.”

“If we meet up there,” I answered, “I’ll just say: ‘See? I told you!”

We had this conversation during one of our long walks from home to the university campus. We always follow the same route and have the same conversation: He denies, I affirm. But lately I have the feeling that Jesus is with us, walking next to me and smiling. I’m between the two of them, loving them both, waiting for the right moment to take one step back and let the two of them walk side by side.

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