FOOD FOR THOUGHT	MIRACLES
Fr Francis Marsden	For 22 Feb.

Little miracles we may be familiar with: you have lost something, you pray to St Anthony. An hour later, you suddenly see it in a place you never expected. The car breaks down. You pray. You find someone who can help or happens to have just the right tools.

A relative goes into hospital. You have a Mass said for them. They recover more quickly and fully than expected. You are in difficulty and ask God for help. A couple of days later you meet someone you have not seen for years, who can answer your problem.

None of these could be proved as a miracle. Still these sorts of coincidences (“Godcidences”) often happen in the lives of devout Christians. The Lord works in His mysterious ways. As one Anglican dean said: “While I keep praying, coincidences happen. If I don’t pray, the coincidences stop.”

Of course some non-believers sneer at this. Others believe in God, but cannot accept Him ‘interfering’ in creation. Miracles would be against, the laws of nature, they claim. Therefore, they cannot happen. Is this true? Does a miracle really contradict scientific laws?

Firstly, we need to realize that scientific "laws" are never 100% proved. Science deals only with the usual and regular behaviour of matter - it has nothing to say about unusual or miraculous events, except that they are unusual. For example, an apple falls from a tree: Newton’s theory of gravity assumes that because this happens 99 times, it will also happen the 100th time, Usually this assumption works, and we talk about the ‘law of gravity’. Yet, logically it is still only an assumption, and does not rule out St Teresa levitating at prayer. This latter is an experimental fact which shows that the gravity theory has limits.

In scientific research, one tends to dismiss. Odd results as experimental error, at least initially. However, if odd results accumulate, you have to devise a new theory to explain them. Classical physicists are stumped when it comes to paranormal or mystical phenomena, and are inclined to ignore them.

Secondly, science looks at only the material aspect of reality. However, there are other levels of being:
The Divine		the Trinity
Spiritual, non-material		angels and demons
Spiritual, material and self-conscious	man
Conscious, material	animals
Living, material   	plants and vegetative life
Material only	minerals, inanimate objects

Now man shares his physical nature with the material world, but his spiritual nature with God and the angels. There is no impenetrable barrier between spiritual and material creation. Supernatural powers or spiritual forces can work in the material world. Sometimes the actions of the Holy Spirit are openly seen on the physical level, especially in the life of Jesus. Here we see four categories of miracle;

1.	He heals the sick. He is Lord of salvation (wholeness) and will one day end all human suffering.
2.	He raises the dead. He is Lord of Life. On the last day, He will raise all men to eternal life.
3.	He casts out demons (exorcism). He is Lord over Satan and the rebel angels, whose empire He has come to destroy.
4.	He multiplies loaves and stills, the storm (nature miracles). He is Lord of creation, and is making all things new.

In many parts of the world, the same mighty works happen today, through the power of the Holy Spirit, wherever there is a lively and trusting faith in God’s power to act.

One problem for us in the West is that we are heavily influenced by materialistic thinking. We think of matter as the ‘real’ world, and regard the spiritual as vague or dubious or ‘unscientific’. In fact, the invisible spiritual world is just as real and far more permanent than the visible world of matter.

It is God who sustains all things in being. If God ceased willing us to exist, we would collapse into nothingness in an instant. At every moment, He sustains creation. Obviously then, He can work within creation in subtle or dramatic ways, to point to Christ the Redeemer. A miracle is not a party trick: it is a sign revealing Jesus as Lord. Thus it perfects creation.

Miracles present no problem if you hold a comprehensive worldview which allows for spiritual reality. However, the materialist or rationalist is narrow-minded. He denies the existence of a spiritual realm, and is prejudiced against miracles from the start. He dismisses or ignores reports of the miraculous.
This is itself unscientific and an evasion of truth.

Nor can we scientifically ‘prove’ a miracle either. One can examine, say, the Turin shroud, healings at Lourdes or reports of apparitions, and conclude that there is no scientific or material explanation for them.
that supernatural factors may be involved. The judgment as to whether God has worked a miracle is finally a prayerful spiritual discernment.