Thank You

Thanks to all of you who are praying for baby Paul. I have received messages from a number of people assuring me and his parents that they will pray for him. We are deeply grateful. Let us hope that the Lord will grant this prayer through Blessed Paul's intercession. As I said in my initial post, I will offer Mass for all those praying for little Paul, for their intentions and needs. God bless you.

Prayers Please. We're Looking For A Miracle

Dear readers, 

I am asking for your prayers because a miracle is needed. A friend of mine is expecting a baby but recent tests have revealed that the baby, a boy, has serious heart defects. 

We are turning to Blessed Paul VI to intercede with the Lord, and we are asking him for a miracle. Could I ask you all to remember this little baby in your prayers and to ask Blessed Paul VI specifically for a miracle so the child will be cured of the defects and born healthy. Could I also ask that you ask your friends to do the same? The mother has decided to call the baby Paul, so let us intercede for Baby Paul.

I will be offering a Mass for Paul and his mother and family, but I will also offer another Mass for the intentions of all those who join us in this campaign of prayer. Who knows, if we get a miracle, we may have what is necessary to see Blessed Paul's canonisation.  

Thank you for your kindness. If you need a prayer, I have included the novena prayer we used in preparation for his beatification.

Novena Prayer

Heavenly Father,

We thank you for the witness of your Servant, Blessed Paul VI, who served you and the Church as Universal Pastor in difficult times.  

As a pilgrim among pilgrims he sought to reveal the beauty and joy of the Gospel to the men and women of his time, choosing the way of gentleness and forbearance.

As Shepherd of the flock he sought to proclaim the truth in a time of great confusion in imitation of his patron the Apostle to the Gentiles.

As Servant he proclaimed the Gospel of Life and in doing so bore the cross of suffering and isolation in union with your Crucified Son becoming a Prophet in the midst of the growing culture of death.

As we beseech you to raise your Servant to be numbered among the Saints, may his example of faith, courage and patient endurance inspire us in our daily living of the Gospel and in our witness to Jesus Christ.

May we too be Prophets of life, respecting, protecting and cherishing the gift of life, most especially in its most vulnerable moments.

May we too be your missionaries at this time, seeking to transform the hearts of all men and women through the joy we find in Christ.

Hear our prayers, most Merciful Father, and grant us through the intercession of Blessed Paul the graces we now ask that you may grant a healing of baby Paul.

Through Christ our Lord.
Amen. 

Our Father.   Hail Mary.   Glory Be. 

Blessed Paul VI, pray for him

The Miracle

 You may have seen this, but if not, here is the account of the miracle which has led to the canonisation of Blessed John Paul.  The lady healed is Floribeth Mora, and she invoked the intercession of Blessed John Paul after she had watched his beatification ceremony on television.

It is an extraordinary healing, but I am struck by what the voice said to the woman: "Rise! Do not be afraid!"  The words of the Blessed Pontiff himself at the Mass for the Inauguration of his Papacy in 1978.

The Blood Of The Martyr

Someday, in my dreams, I will be waking up on this morning in Naples, having participated in the festivities for the feast of St Januarius and witnessed the miracle of the liquification of his blood.   Once expressing this wish to a friend of mine a while ago he said, "Don't bother, Naples is hell" - I know, I know: but just one day.

I have always had a fascination with St Januarius - as a child I would read and reread the story of his life and the accounts of the miracle.  So little is known about him and yet he is so influential.  Come his feast day the people of Naples hold their breath hoping the miracle will happen and God's blessings will be given.  When it has not happened the city faced difficulties, even disasters.   Call it superstitious, but it's no harm having our presumptions challenged now and again, to have to wait on the blessing of the Lord, keeps us from taking things for granted.

Anyway, until I can get to Naples, I content myself with prayer, devotion and the accounts of the miracle.  This year Taylor Marshall has a good article and video of the miracle.  A question: does anyone out there have a relic of St Januarius?

A Miracle For Pope Pius?

A few months ago word leaked out that there was a possible miracle for the Venerable Pope Pius XII - many of us rejoiced because we saw that at last his Cause was proceeding.  Pope Benedict finally declared him Venerable in 2009 after holding off signing the Decree of Heroic Virtue for two years to allow an internal investigation into the controversy over the late Pope's record during World War II.  Thanks to the work of numerous scholars, not least among them the ever faithful Sr Margherita Marchione, and Gary Krupp and the Pave The Way Foundation, there was enough evidence to convince the Holy Father that he could safely proceed with the Decree of Heroic Virtue.

Now details of the alleged miracle are emerging, USA Today has an article with details.  If the article is to be believed, it seems a lady, identified as Maria Esposita was suffering from an aggressive form of cancer.  Praying to Pope Pius XII, the cancer disappeared after one course of chemotherapy leaving no secondaries and no traces.  This is remarkable and may indeed be the result of divine intervention.  However, according to the article, some doctors are not convinced, and though the cancer was aggressive and her doctor, a non believer, recommended prayer for the treatment to be successful, it seems the professional opinion being offered maintains that this cancer could have be treated successfully with one course of chemo. Her bishop, having listened to this opinion, has decided it might not be safe to proceed with this case.

While I love Pope Pius and I look forward to the day of his beatification, I believe the bishop's decision is correct.  With Pius I think we need an iron tight miracle, one that will gobsmack atheists and critics alike.  We cannot allow any doubts to linger over the favour which will be used to raise the Pontiff to the altars. 

We hear too often of the "questionable" miracles surrounding certain saints.  A friend of mine often teases me about the miracle accepted for Blessed Mother Teresa, and of course I always rise to the bait, fool that I am.  But the critics say that the immediate disappearance of an incurable malignant tumour the size of an orange in the stomach of the lady healed could have been due to a pill.  If that is the case we all want that pill because it can do the impossible.  Yet many still question it.  So too with the miracle for the beatification of Blessed John Paul.   The critics in all these cases will never be convinced:  never; they have too much to lose in accepting the veracity of the favour.

Given that Pius has so many critics, among them people who are not interested in the truth, and even those whose organisations and countries did not lift a finger to help the Jewish people during the Holocaust, indeed some even discouraged Pius from speaking out, we should not be giving them any more ammunition.  We should proceed with the Cause and pray fervently for a miracle and when it comes process it without any delay, but there must be prudence.  Those who say "why can't we just wait?" (reminiscent of another recent campaign!) are just trying to buy time in the hope this Pope drops and the glorious liberal revolution begins under a "progressive" pope.   The last thing the Church should do is give them any excuse to preen what's left of their aging feathers.

I do not think the Congregation for the Causes of Saints will accept the favour, I will be surprised if they do.  From what I know, despite the insidious complaints, the CCS is very particular and if there is any doubt they will throw out a miracle - better to be safe than sorry.  I know of a Cause where an almost water-tight favour was submitted, but almost was not enough - there might be a question - it was a slight "might", but it was enough for the favour to be sent back "Return to Sender".  And we should expect nothing less. Yes it is disappointing after all the prayer and the work, but a miracle will come - one which will be enough and the good people in CCS will recognise it when they see it.

So keep praying, good people, and commend the sick to all those Servants of God so the Lord may, through their intercession, pour out his healing grace upon them and give us, the Church on earth, the joy of new Blesseds and Saints.  

Back Down To Earth



Well, we're back from Fatima after a wonderful week.  I had to be carried kicking and screaming to the airplane, as I usually do it's so hard to leave.   You were all remembered in prayer, dear readers, and your intentions remembered in a Mass I offered at the Capelinha, the Chapel of Apparitions.  

We had a wonderful time of prayer, candlelight processions, visits to the holy places around the town and further afield to Lisbon (the house of St Anthony) and the Eucharistic Miracle of Santarem.  We also got to visit Coimbra for Mass in the monastery where Sr Lucia lived most of her religious life, and to the tomb of St Elizabeth of Portugal, my first visit, but which was a little disappointing as it is very run down.

All the talk of the sanctuary was of a "miracle" of the sun which took place last month, on the feast of Our Lady of Fatima.  After the Solemn Mass, images of Blessed John Paul were being broadcast over the square to celebrate his beatification, when the sun changed and became like a large host with a halo around it.  Many of you may have heard about it, but here in Ireland we heard nothing - our media would not tend to be interested in such celestial happenings.  When visiting the Dominican sisters of Perpetual Rosary they confirmed it: they saw it from their cloister.  Apparently the phenomenon lasted three hours.  Here are some videos so you can see for yourself.  The first is the moment when the "miracle" was first seen, the last, Portugese television's report:

And The Sun Danced....??

"Look, Pedro, it's ET...or is the sun spinning?"

A few years ago I was watching a documentary on Fatima, and some sceptics were trying to explain the miracle of the sun.  Now ordinarily they would just dismiss it as religious nuts having hallucinations, but the fact that 70,000 people saw it, among them devoted atheists, and that it was reported in a secular newspaper, means they cannot take refuge in that argument.  So they have to come up with something, after all one cannot accept on a scientific basis that the Virgin appeared at Fatima, that God exists and that a miracle was performed.

So as I was crunching away on some snack or other I was listening to the various theories one of which was that some sort of alien craft had come down on the crowds in Fatima.  Now I don't know how you would answer that one, to be honest.  Some poor devil who does not believe in God seemed quite content to introduce ET and his mates as a valid explanation for the miracle.  Now, we could, indeed, examine that particular hypothesis on its merits, scientific or otherwise, but let's face it, life is too short.

What prompts my post: Matthew Archbald, always a good read, has an article on the most recent "explanations" put forward as a means of undermining the miraculous nature of the event.   Enjoy, or a priest friend of mine would say, "knock yourselves out".  It is a pity that among those positing these weird ideas are members of the science faculty of the Catholic University of Louvain.   

All of this reminds me of the days I was studying Scripture in the Milltown Institute in Dublin.  Our lecturer was coming up with all sorts of strange ideas to explain away the miracles of Jesus.  One gem was that used to show Jesus never walked on water.  It seems that if you are in a boat in the middle of the Sea of Galilee, at a certain time of day, when the sun is at a certain strength, and the tide is at such and such etc etc, if you see someone walking on the beach, it will appear as if the person is walking on water, and that's what happened.  "Right", says I, "and tell me now, ignorant man that I am: if the disciples were in the middle of the Sea of Galilee, and Jesus was only walking on the beach, how did he get out to the boat?"  Response: "You're so closed to new ideas."

Sometimes the "alternative" explanations require a greater act of faith than the original miracles!

All that said: the Fraternity is going to Fatima in June, would you like to join us?  A week's stay at the shrine: 10th- 17th June, with full board only €759.  For more details contact Therese at JWT Pilgrimages: 01 241 0800.

Back Again...

Well, telephone company guy no 2 arrived about noon yesterday - Philip by name - nice guy. After a quick look around he told me the cable linking the telephone mast on the road with the one hidden in the woods beside my house was down.  I went out to a lunch meeting and when I got back - hey presto, phone and net back.  So thanks to Philip, Father is back on the net.  So be prepared for more drivel, ranting and the occasional insight (pure fluke).  

Miracles

Interesting article in the Montreal Gazette on miracles, well worth a read.