INTENSELY STRINGENT STANDARD FOR 'MIRACLES' HAS LIMITED WONDROUS RESULTS FROM LOURDES
"The Church has always been reluctant to claim that a miracle of healing has taken place," writes Catholic healing expert Dr. Francis MacNutt, of Florida, in a new, highly useful little book. "In 1974 I had the wonderful opportunity to spend three days at the famous shrine in Lourdes and spoke at length with the physician who was in charge of the Medical Bureau. He told me how frustrating it was to see so many remarkable healings taking place without being able to authenticate them because it is so difficult to meet the six stringent conditions that have to be present for a healing to be declared as scientifically verifiable. For example, one of the conditions is that the patient can't be taking any medication that could have possibly caused the cure. But what cancer patient under a doctor's care is not receiving radiation or some other medical treatment?
"As a result, the doctors have examined thousands of patients in whom measurable physical changes have taken place that they could not verify as a miraculous cure. Most ordinary observers could see that God had healed numerous patients, but nevertheless, the rigorous conditions could not be met to seem it as a miracle."
There it is -- the reason we hear so few wondrous healings declared from the pulpit or the chancery. It is a good meditation in this month when we commemorate Lourdes. For it is clearly the case that science is directing religion instead of the other way around. Therein is a reason for the current crisis of faith. If something can in any way be explained by normal means -- no matter how tiny the chance -- it is discarded (attributed to natural forces) when instead anything wondrous first should be attributed to God.
We have gone from one extreme -- superstition -- to another: believing only in the natural.
Continue reading this article here: http://www.spiritdaily.com/macnuttlourdes.htm
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