Revd Jack Sullivan, healed through Newman's intercession, meets parishoners at the Oxford Oratory, November 2009
One of the problems forty years of rampant liberalism has done is remove any sense of the miraculous, obviously we have to be skeptical about miraculous claims, but reasonable skepticism can end up as mere cynicism. Once we dismiss the miraculous it is very easy to dismiss the involvement of God in the lives of men or in the life of the Church, thus prayer becomes indistinguishable from Buddhist navel gazing or therapy, the Church becomes a social club, the sacrament mere rituals and we live in an Arian fog forever distant from God.
A few weeks ago Ms Pepinster's Liberal Fanzine carried an article by dear old Clifford Longley, who I must confess, I have long suspected suffered from basic Christological heresy, suggesting miracles should no longer be required for beatifications or canonizations. In fact he is quite rude about the whole subject and asks: Is that really the kind of God we believe in? The answer is of course, if you are Catholic, yes! It is important that we are skeptical, but the miraculous is at the very heat of faith and our understanding of God.
Anyhow, there is rather good response to Mr Longley, firmly rooted in Newman's arguements, here.
5 comments:
Oh that is priceless!
"Is that really the kind of God we believe in?"
The Lord didn't really change water into wine. He just sent one of the Disciples down to Waitrose to pick up another couple of bottles!
The Lord didn't really raise Lazarus from the dead. Lazza was just having a kip in a coffin!
The Lord didn't really calm the stormy lake. He'd just heard the shipping forecast and figured it would die down about then.
I could go on, but what would be the point.
Of course that's the kind of God we believe in!
Strangely enough I have just read in the "America needs Fatima" blog, the details of a quite surprising miracle. Should anyone want to read it for themselves please go to:-
http://www.americaneedsfatima.org/Articles/michael-michael-of-the-morning.html
True, the man who wrote the letter to his mother did not post this story, but it is vouched for by others as being true.
I do not dismiss it anyway!
JARay
I've nicknamed him Clifford Wrongley.
Laurence England - yes indeed - priceless!
And the ten lepers were just having a 'bad hair day', the haemmorhaging woman was just suffering from PMT and the Centurian's servant was just a lazy good-for-naught caught napping!
And what of the subsequent scientifically and medically validated but unexplained cures at Fatima, Lourdes etc...
And is it not incredible that NO OTHER RELIGIOUS BELIEF can lay claim to miracles! Catholics can do so without hesitation because Jesus Christ is God Himself. And THAT is another reason why the Devil twists and turns the mind's of men to make them disbelieve in the miraculous because it pulls them away from Jesus and all the 'fairy stories' which we adults don't believe. Oh, how ever so grown-up of us eh?!!! Ha ha ha..
I believe in miracles. And will write about mine on Feb 25th, this year, on my blog.
They do exist. Profoundly and absolutely.
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