Exaggerations and Eucharistic Miracles
It would be tragic for Catholics to try to convince the world of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist with unsubstantiated scientific claims about bleeding hosts and divine DNA.
It would be tragic for Catholics to try to convince the world of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist with unsubstantiated scientific claims about bleeding hosts and divine DNA.
The latest official Church recognition of a miracle cure from Lourdes reminds us that there are still certain ailments left in life that no ordinary doctor can treat.
Did a Jesuit priest really recreate the Feeding of the Five Thousand in a Mexican rubbish dump on Christmas Day 1972? Or are such “Miracles of Abundance” better understood as providing the faithful with food for thought in purely symbolic terms?
When I was a kid, I found a book that featured dozens of Eucharistic miracles. I was enraptured by the dramatic situations that led up to the glorious moment when a host dripped blood or turned into human flesh before an astonished congregation. For years after discovering this book, I didn’t bow my head during … Read more
Tis the season to attack traditional Christianity by pedaling, through social networks and the mass media, speculative theories that contradict orthodox Christian beliefs. On Christmas Eve (predictably), the Washington Post revived a 2014 article promoting the discredited theory that the “historical Jesus” never even existed. Yet even the agnostic New Testament scholar, Bart Ehrman, famously … Read more
I have a friend, Adrian, whom I have known for nearly thirty years. He and his family of eleven children and some grandchildren live in our state’s capital, Sydney, more than five hundred kilometers away, so we do not see as much of each other as we would like. A few weeks back he called … Read more
As the Plymouth Bay Colony was starting up, the scholar Robert Burton back in England published the philosophical reflection,“Anatomy of Melancholy,” analyzing his own tendency to depression which he attributed to “black bile.” It is not clear whether his death was by hanging, but he certainly made it fashionable for philosophers to be gloomy. Yet … Read more
Kenneth Woodward in The Book of Miracles makes a distinction among various types of miracles and their significance. In the multiple branchings-out of Hinduism, miracles are taken as signs of spiritual power as well as compassion for others. Miracles of Hindu gods like Krishna and holy men like Shankara and the “poet saints” consist of … Read more