After more hours of study and research than I can ever recount or care to admit, I combined my scientific curiosity, my engineering-minded love of data, and my professional skills in graphic design and sought to produce the world’s top online resource on Marian apparitions: MiracleHunter.com. Now, more than fifteen years later, I am blessed that my research has opened many doors for me, and I consider the inspiration of my mother that led me to my Mother in heaven to be the beginning of it all.
Chapter 1
Are Miracles Really All That Important?
The Church has been enriched by the fruits of miracles from its very beginning. It was the miracles of Christ that invited people to follow him, and it was history’s greatest miracle — his resurrection — that changed the world forever. The apostles were emboldened by his mandate to work miracles and the prodigy of Pentecost that sent them on their way into the world. St. Paul’s life-altering vision put him on the path to become Christianity’s greatest evangelist, and the Roman emperor Constantine was first inspired to legalize Christianity in the year 312 after witnessing a vision in the sky of the IHS Christogram.5 Miracles big and small surround us, including the greatest one that happens every hour of every day in every country of the world: the Eucharist, bread and wine transformed into Christ’s body and blood, which has remained at the center of the Catholic Faith since its institution. The Catholic Church has always affirmed the importance of miracles and revelation and teaches that Christ’s works demonstrate that “the kingdom has already arrived on earth.”6
In many places in Scripture we are able to reflect on the role of the supernatural in our lives of faith. St. Paul, in writing to the Thessalonians, reminds the faithful to be open to miracles: “Do not quench the Spirit, do not despise prophesying, but test everything; hold fast what is good” (1 Thess 5:19–21). Christ worked many miracles of healing, but he did not seem to encourage the search for miracles: “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of Jonah” (Mt 16:4). In the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, Christ announces that no messenger from the next world will be sent to the brothers of the rich man to encourage them to repent. “If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if some one should rise from the dead” (Lk 16:31). Finally, Christ’s words to Thomas are as relevant today as they were when the apostle touched Christ’s wounded side: “You have believed because you have seen me. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe” (Jn 20:29).
The Catholic Church acknowledges that Sacred Scripture is bolstered and given a divine guarantee through the miracles of Christ, most importantly his resurrection from the dead. We read in Vatican II’s Dei Verbum, the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation:
To see Jesus is to see His Father (John 14:9). For this reason Jesus perfected revelation by fulfilling it through His whole work of making Himself present and manifesting Himself: through His words and deeds, His signs and wonders, but especially through His death and glorious resurrection from the dead and final sending of the Spirit of truth. Moreover He confirmed with divine testimony what revelation proclaimed, that God is with us to free us from the darkness of sin and death, and to raise us up to life eternal. (no. 4)
The miracles of Christ and the subsequent works of the apostles in his name come down to us through Sacred Scripture, which is considered to be public revelation, as it is valid for all time and meant for all. Miracles and messages received after the death of the last evangelist, John — even extensively studied and Church-authorized spiritual insights given to history’s greatest saints — are considered private revelation. In his Message of Fatima, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (the future Benedict XVI) reminded Catholics of the importance of public revelation (as opposed to private revelation) found in Scripture:
The term “public Revelation” refers to the revealing action of God directed to humanity as a whole and which finds its literary expression in the two parts of the Bible: the Old and New Testaments…. It is valid for all time, and it has reached its fulfillment in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In Christ, God has said everything, that is, he has revealed himself completely, and therefore revelation came to an end with the fulfillment of the mystery of Christ as enunciated in the New Testament.7
In his apostolic exhortation Verbum Domini, he speaks of the unique value of private revelation:
The value of private revelations is essentially different from that of the one public revelation: the latter demands faith…. Private revelation is an aid to this faith, and it demonstrates its credibility precisely because it refers back to the one public revelation…. A private revelation can introduce new emphases, give rise to new forms of piety, or deepen older ones. It can have a certain prophetic character and can be a valuable aid for better understanding and living the Gospel at a certain time; consequently it should not be treated lightly. It is a help which is proffered, but its use is not obligatory.8
The dogmatic constitution Dei Filius from Vatican I reminds us that miracles are external signs provided by God as arguments on behalf of revelation.9 The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), in paragraph 156, thus relates this expression of the purpose of miracles:
So “that the submission of our faith might nevertheless be in accordance with reason, God willed that external proofs of his Revelation should be joined to the internal helps of the Holy Spirit” (Dei Filius 3: DS 3009). Thus the miracles of Christ and the saints, prophecies, the Church’s growth and holiness, and her fruitfulness and stability “are the most certain signs of divine Revelation, adapted to the intelligence of all”; they are “motives of credibility” (motiva credibilitatis), which show that the assent of faith is “by no means a blind impulse of the mind” (Dei Filius 3008–3010; cf. Mk 16 20; Heb 2:4).
To deny the existence or the possibility of miracles is an error that would put a person outside of communion with the Church (anathema):
If anyone shall say that miracles are impossible, and therefore that all the accounts regarding them, even those contained in Holy Scripture, are to be dismissed as fables or myths; or that miracles can never be known with certainty, and that the divine origin of Christianity cannot be proved by them; let him be anathema.10
For all the caution that is necessary to relegate miraculous phenomena to their proper role as supports that lead the faithful to Christ, it would be a mistake to underestimate the importance of miracles in the life and history of the Church. Catholic philosopher Dietrich von Hildebrand (1889–1977) reminds us:
One of the great purposes of Vatican II was to enliven the religious life of the faithful. True enlivenment requires that the supernatural spirit of Christ be fully thrown into relief. That means eliminating any blurring of the distinction between the natural and supernatural.11
Throughout the Old Testament we hear stories of God’s intervention to protect his chosen people. There are stories of divine favor for great saints such as Joan of Arc, who received inspired messages and protection in battle. In the famous Battle of Lepanto in 1571, Christian forces overcame great odds and the formidable Turkish fleet with all of Europe praying the Rosary and General Andrea Doria sailing with a copy of the miraculous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe in his ship’s stateroom. In a few select Marian apparition accounts, Our Lady has come to the aid of those in need in time of war. In April 1900, local accounts report that when the Boxer Rebellion broke out in China, ten thousand hostile soldiers attacked the small, impoverished mission village of Dong Lu, home to a thousand Christians. The Virgin Mary appeared in the sky as a beautiful lady in white, surrounded by light. The soldiers, in a senseless rage, started to shoot into the sky. Then the attackers suddenly fled, frightened, when a fiery horseman — perhaps St. Michael — chased them out of the village, and they never returned. As recently as 2009, Russians and Georgians reported a miraculous apparition of the Virgin in the sky during military actions in South Ossetia that ended the battle.12