On reflection, the idea that Christ is physically present in the world in the form of the church is quite compatible with belief in transubstantiation in the context of the mass. But if Christ is physically present in some other form that is outside the sacraments and rituals of the church (as these miracles imply) then the whole notion of the church as the body of Christ is brought into question - or so it seems to me. Perhaps that explains why the church is not eager to embrace these reported miracles.
Sure, I believe in miracles and what I called the Force before Spielberg's Star Wars. Just last Friday I came out of a motel around 8am in a town not far from PN thinking I wonder how I will contact a former school friend, a local, I've not seen for many years and there he was on the footpath about to cross the road busy on some chore involving visits to kaumatua.
I've said before, on here I think, that when spectators are of one mind screaming "Go" to the home team winger the passes stick, tacklers run into each other and the final bounce over the try-line is impossibly perfect. The Force is in a big crowd. Now we have billions who know the name Trump as millions knew the name Hitler and the residue power that name still invokes a century later.
At the Grotto at Lourdes in the summer of 1973 I filled an empty but leaky soft drink bottle with the holy spring water. Discarded wheelchairs and crutches abounded. I gifted the water saved to a believer for his local Parish Priest.
Personally, I do not think anyone will ever disprove Matthew and Mark's record of the miracle expansion of loaves and fishes at Galilea even though there have been attempts to do so.
The miracles I believe in are those that I experience for myself. The fire of faith which never consumes its source. Purifying waters transformed into spiritual wine. The bread of life feeding the multitudes. Spiritual truths that need no material confirmation.
Yes, but if we stopped at that point we would have missed the real meaning of the miracle, and the gospel writers would have recorded the event largely in vain. Just knowing that Jesus fed a multitude at another time and in another place does not advance us very far in our spiritual journey. Knowing that he can do it in our own time and for ourselves but in the spiritual dimension gives the story immediate relevance. Similarly while Jesus turned the purifying water into wine (not of the intoxicating kind) at the marriage in Cana two thousand years ago, the real significance for us is the message that Christ can move us beyond a state of purity to one of joy.
Geoff, I think that’s a beautiful way to read the miracles. As signs that point to deeper spiritual realities. I don’t disagree at all that their ultimate purpose is to draw us into something more crucial than the material alone.
But I also think it matters that they happened in history. That the Word became flesh in time and space, and that He worked wonders not just in metaphor but in the dust and sweat of the real world. Christianity isn’t just a set of spiritual principles. It’s a claim about something God - namely, entering human history. The feeding of the multitude was physical bread, distributed to hungry people, with baskets left over. That materiality matters, too.
If God enters this world and bend the rules of nature in ways that leave us stunned, then it’s not just our inner lives he’s redeeming. It’s all of it.
The Son of God entering into the world signifies that our ordinary human material lives, flawed as they are, do indeed matter. "The feeding of the multitude was physical bread, distributed to hungry people, with baskets left over. That materiality matters, too." Absolutely. It also means that to follow Christ we too must feed the hungry, and, so far as we are able, bring joy to the sorrowing heart of man. We do that "in the dust and sweat of the real world" but with a spiritual compassion born out of God's love.
Nice article Liam. It does read like "it’s assumed there’s a natural explanation we just haven’t uncovered yet" is the start of just invoking God of the Gaps.
Across human history it's been done and many of the best examples were later explained by developing science.
Fair enough view. But you could argue that, across all of human history the number of unexplained or miraculous-seeming happening which have later been explained and proven by advancing science numbers in the millions. For religion the number remains zero. That can be interpreted many ways but I am fond of the idea that, if there is a God, it is they who gave mankind the gift of discovery and inquiry that drives science.
Forgive me. According to the account you give, the wafer was discarded at the back of a church, then kept in water for up to three years. Therefore it had already been blasphemed. That should definitely be a major liturgical outrage. The priest or priests involved should have been defrocked and the church in which a 'host' was found discarded should have been demolished.
And since that didn't happen, then it's quite obvious that there is no true holiness present in the circumstances you describe. Thus that 'host' most surely cannot be the Divine Body or Blood.
On reflection, the idea that Christ is physically present in the world in the form of the church is quite compatible with belief in transubstantiation in the context of the mass. But if Christ is physically present in some other form that is outside the sacraments and rituals of the church (as these miracles imply) then the whole notion of the church as the body of Christ is brought into question - or so it seems to me. Perhaps that explains why the church is not eager to embrace these reported miracles.
Sure, I believe in miracles and what I called the Force before Spielberg's Star Wars. Just last Friday I came out of a motel around 8am in a town not far from PN thinking I wonder how I will contact a former school friend, a local, I've not seen for many years and there he was on the footpath about to cross the road busy on some chore involving visits to kaumatua.
I've said before, on here I think, that when spectators are of one mind screaming "Go" to the home team winger the passes stick, tacklers run into each other and the final bounce over the try-line is impossibly perfect. The Force is in a big crowd. Now we have billions who know the name Trump as millions knew the name Hitler and the residue power that name still invokes a century later.
At the Grotto at Lourdes in the summer of 1973 I filled an empty but leaky soft drink bottle with the holy spring water. Discarded wheelchairs and crutches abounded. I gifted the water saved to a believer for his local Parish Priest.
Personally, I do not think anyone will ever disprove Matthew and Mark's record of the miracle expansion of loaves and fishes at Galilea even though there have been attempts to do so.
The miracles I believe in are those that I experience for myself. The fire of faith which never consumes its source. Purifying waters transformed into spiritual wine. The bread of life feeding the multitudes. Spiritual truths that need no material confirmation.
Do you believe that Jesus used actual bread to feed a multitude on at least one occasion?
Yes, but if we stopped at that point we would have missed the real meaning of the miracle, and the gospel writers would have recorded the event largely in vain. Just knowing that Jesus fed a multitude at another time and in another place does not advance us very far in our spiritual journey. Knowing that he can do it in our own time and for ourselves but in the spiritual dimension gives the story immediate relevance. Similarly while Jesus turned the purifying water into wine (not of the intoxicating kind) at the marriage in Cana two thousand years ago, the real significance for us is the message that Christ can move us beyond a state of purity to one of joy.
Geoff, I think that’s a beautiful way to read the miracles. As signs that point to deeper spiritual realities. I don’t disagree at all that their ultimate purpose is to draw us into something more crucial than the material alone.
But I also think it matters that they happened in history. That the Word became flesh in time and space, and that He worked wonders not just in metaphor but in the dust and sweat of the real world. Christianity isn’t just a set of spiritual principles. It’s a claim about something God - namely, entering human history. The feeding of the multitude was physical bread, distributed to hungry people, with baskets left over. That materiality matters, too.
If God enters this world and bend the rules of nature in ways that leave us stunned, then it’s not just our inner lives he’s redeeming. It’s all of it.
The Son of God entering into the world signifies that our ordinary human material lives, flawed as they are, do indeed matter. "The feeding of the multitude was physical bread, distributed to hungry people, with baskets left over. That materiality matters, too." Absolutely. It also means that to follow Christ we too must feed the hungry, and, so far as we are able, bring joy to the sorrowing heart of man. We do that "in the dust and sweat of the real world" but with a spiritual compassion born out of God's love.
Nice article Liam. It does read like "it’s assumed there’s a natural explanation we just haven’t uncovered yet" is the start of just invoking God of the Gaps.
Across human history it's been done and many of the best examples were later explained by developing science.
Better the God of the Gaps than the Scientist of the Gaps
Fair enough view. But you could argue that, across all of human history the number of unexplained or miraculous-seeming happening which have later been explained and proven by advancing science numbers in the millions. For religion the number remains zero. That can be interpreted many ways but I am fond of the idea that, if there is a God, it is they who gave mankind the gift of discovery and inquiry that drives science.
Forgive me. According to the account you give, the wafer was discarded at the back of a church, then kept in water for up to three years. Therefore it had already been blasphemed. That should definitely be a major liturgical outrage. The priest or priests involved should have been defrocked and the church in which a 'host' was found discarded should have been demolished.
And since that didn't happen, then it's quite obvious that there is no true holiness present in the circumstances you describe. Thus that 'host' most surely cannot be the Divine Body or Blood.