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<\/a>The material world does not need God\u2019s miraculous interference; but God cannot deprive Himself of the power to interfere with it when He sees fit to do so. ~ Rev. Charles Coppins, SJ, A Brief Text-book of Logic and Philosophy<\/em>, 1891<\/p>\nThe world may not need miracles, but those of us living in it often seem to. Some more than others.<\/p>\n
I welcomed the chance to review Tim Stafford\u2019s new book Miracles: A Journalist Looks at Modern-Day Miracles<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0from a Catholic standpoint for the Patheos Book Club<\/strong><\/a> even before Stafford\u2019s topic jumped into the headlines<\/strong><\/a> via the stories of \u201cmiraculous\u201d survivals of the Aurora shooting. We Catholics, after all, have a unique (if bipolar) relationship with miracles. We see them everywhere: in weeping statues<\/strong><\/a> and rosary chains turned to gold, in the Turin shroud and the E-Bay grilled cheese sandwich<\/strong><\/a>. And yet we\u2019re remarkably\u00a0blas\u00e9 about them. We\u2019re not, for the most part, a Church that goes on about miracles, or works them into our day-to-day ministry, even in those parts of what Tim Stafford calls \u201cthe majority world\u201d where Western skepticism has not yet worked its unmagic, and where among Pentecostal<\/a> Protestant missions, Stafford reports, \u201cmiracles seem to be the normal entry point for people becoming followers of Jesus\u201d (p. 148)<\/em>. For Catholics, miracles are a kind of religious bling\u2014nice to flash on special occasions, but not a necessary part of the wardrobe of faith.<\/p>\n Tim Stafford comes to his exploration from a distinctly different place. He is a journalist, but a religious journalist, not one looking to write a secular expos\u00e9. A Presbyterian for whom the charismatic strand of Christianity holds a special attraction, Stafford writes in part to answer his own spiritual questions. He confesses toward the start of Miracles<\/em>:<\/p>\n All my life I\u2019ve wanted God to show up in ways I can point to. I\u2019ve never been totally satisfied with warm feelings and good morals alone; I want to see God at work in ways that can only be him.\u00a0(p. 31)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n That longing to see God in action is a kind of looking to miracles-as-proof that Stafford recognizes is both incomplete and unavoidable. In the best passages of Miracles<\/em>, he leaves it behind, and approaches a sense of the role of miracle in the lives of followers of Jesus that Christians of all traditions and persuasions (including Catholics) can agree with and learn from. Miracles\u2014in the Bible, in the apostolic age, today\u2014are not meant to prove, but to point toward. They are, literally, signs of what is already in our midst and yet to come: the kingdom of God, in which sin and death are no more.<\/p>\n Miracles are signs pointing toward resurrection. Jesus did miracles that prefigured his resurrection. Our miracles are a foretaste of our resurrection, and of the renewal of the whole earth. (p. 200)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n There are many other places in Miracles<\/em> where Stafford\u2019s way and mine diverge, however. Much of the book is devoted to exploring the modern Protestant Pentecostal\/charismatic movement and the centrality of miraculous healings to that tradition. My own experience of the Catholic charismatic movement is limited, and though I respect those who find it a source of spiritual renewal, it was never my calling.<\/p>\n Stafford notes with what seems almost like a bit of envy that Catholics, alone among Christians, have a codified process for determining the veracity of miraculous cures (p. 53)<\/em>. He refers to the investigation, by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, of miracles worked through the intercession of candidates for formal inclusion in the Church\u2019s calendar of saints. One such miracle is required for a person to be beatified (called Blessed, and honored in local churches or religious congregations); another is needed for the Blessed to be named Saint and honored universally. (The old rules required as many as four miracles, at least two of them \u201cfirst-class,\u201d or demonstrably incapable of any explanation but divine intervention. When Pope John Paul II relaxed the rules for canonization in 1983, comedian Don Novello\u2019s spot-on Fr Guido Sarducci character, \u201cgossip columnist for L\u2019Osservatore Romano<\/em>,\u201d lamented on Saturday Night Live<\/em>, \u201cTwo stinking miracles? And one of them can be a card trick!\u201d)<\/p>\n These miracles are the exception to the rule that miracles should not be used to prove anything; for the Church, they are proof that a person is already a participant in the eternal merits of Christ in heaven, and thus worthy to be called Saint. God makes saints; the Church only recognizes them, when the signs are there. Catholics also maintain the Board of Medicine at Lourdes, established by Pope Pius X to certify cures associated with the place of pilgrimage\u2014so they would not be dismissed as card tricks.<\/p>\n Stafford goes very lightly over accounts of miracles from the centuries between the apostolic era and the charismatic renewal, dismissing as \u201clegend\u201d (p. 116)<\/em> the countless wonders worked by saints and martyrs while they were alive or by intercession after their deaths. It\u2019s important to remember, I\u2019d argue, that the word legend<\/em> can also apply to the coordinates on a map, so these too are signs pointing the way to the kingdom, if more ornately curlicued than the highway signs Stafford likes to use as an analogy. And he can\u2019t quite disguise his sniff of Protestant revulsion when it comes to miracles associated with relics and other material objects (p. 124)<\/em>\u2014though as a good Reformer he\u2019s quick to point out that these have been a lucrative revenue stream for Catholicism (p. 125)<\/em>. Stafford does stop short of Calvin\u2019s condemnation of all post-biblical miracles, which would have called into question the modern-day miracles he covers in the book.<\/p>\n