Posted on 09/07/2003 5:03:54 PM PDT by NYer
Church probes Lourdes cure
An almost totally paralysed 60-year-old Italian woman has been instantly cured of her illness in Lourdes this week.
And as the amazing and moving story of Giulia Mongelli Tofani emerged, she has announced that she is totally convinced that a prayer to the Blessed Lady was the reason for her incredible recovery. 'I am overjoyed, most happy, Our Lady of Lourdes has cured me,' said Giulia, who prior to her visit was almost completely helpless and had to be spoon fed by her family. 'When I came to Lourdes I was full of anguish, now I feel like a cricket,' she said. 'I can walk up and down. I climb the stairs, I go up and down now and never stop. I laugh and joke.'
Giulia is convinced a miracle has occurred and top Vatican official Cardinal Camillo Ruini, vicar-general of Rome Diocese who led her party to Lourdes, backed this view when he publicly thanked God and Our Lady for 'the gift received by Giulia' on the final evening of her visit. The woman had been a bartender in Rome for 35 years before contracting a rare viral infection that left her paralysed some years ago.
Her condition gradually worsened and two years ago only prolonged treatment in the intensive care unit of a Rome clinic kept her alive. Until last week, she showed no sign at all of improvement, but now she can walk and move freely, and as she arrived back in Italy, she told her amazing story.
Giulia said that one evening she was sat watching the candlelight at the grotto of Our Lady in Lourdes, though she was so ill she was not even able to hold a candle in her hand. As she gazed at the statue of Our Lady, she prayed for her seriously ill husband but said she also felt very much alone, and told Our Lady 'I cannot go on'. Giulia said she suddenly felt free from the burden she carried and she heard an inner voice telling her to 'Walk! Walk!'
'I walked up the ramp, but then I stopped and marvelled that I had done it,' she said. But then the voice again urged her 'Walk! Walk!' She did, and then called her friends over to tell them 'I can walk' before bursting into tears and weeping uncontrollably for some time. 'I asked to hold a candle,' she said. 'Then I went to the grotto of Our Lady to thank her. I went back four or five times.'
As news of Giulia's recovery spread among excited pilgrims, her parish priest Don Canio then accompanied her to the medical bureau at Lourdes, where she was subjected to a three hour examination. The bureau are currently studying her case. Though Guilia and her friends are convinced as to what has taken place, it is commonly accepted that the Church is very slow to recognise miracles, even at Lourdes.
Of the millions of pilgrims who have visited Lourdes in the last 145 years, only around 7,000 cases of alleged cures have been examined in depth, and of these just 66 have been officially recognised by the Church as miracles. <
Forgive me Aliska, but you're sounding superstitious here - as if we can "force" miraculous cures from God. Plain old Holy water? There's nothing "plain" about it - that's the whole point! You take ordinary water, then a Priest blesses it - it is now "set apart" for Holy usage! It is no longer to be treated as "plain".
The water from the Grotto at Lourdes itself is "plain". It is the Faith and Trust in God from our hearts that elicits miracles from God (through Mary). The whole event of Lourdes, including the water, is the external catalyst drawing us in our interior life through which we approach God for healing associated with the extraordinary favors He chose St. Bernadette and Lourdes for.
Ad Iesus per Mariam. Here He confirms Mary as the Immaculate Conception. But I would think the central message of Lourdes from Mary to St. Bernadette was "...penance, penance, penance..." of which St. Bernadette fulfilled through the rest of her life.
Recalling, or leading people to, the healing waters of Baptism, where sin is destroyed and the Life of Grace is born, is the greatest miracle. Faith is central in any event. Even in the Gospels Christ did not always heal everyone of physical infirmities where Faith was lacking, and those that He did, the people eventually grew old and died.
The legitimacy of Lourdes (or Fatima, etc.) as a shrine of Faith is valid to the extent that it leads people into full communion with Christ and His Church with growth in Faith and Trust. At this point, we can recognize that God through Christ and His mother Wills at times to work miracles for some if it is of benefit to them and others in terms of the final goal of life - Eternal Life. These miracles necessarily follow from and confirm Faith of the recipients. Also, a complete consideration of potential miracles includes recognition of our need for penance (for ourselves and others) and "carrying our daily crosses".
Whatever you do, don't get caught up on external and quantitative comparisons concerning how many miracles, and to what people, they are given. There is nothing "fair" about it. The Grace that God gives us is infinitely more than any of us evers deserves or can even imagine to ask for. Indeed, the greatest miracle par excellence is reception of our Lord in Holy Communion. No, God is not "stingy".
Once it was exposed to the air it started turning black and they had to put a wax coating on it. It was in a book I got at the library; can't remember the title.
"In 1925, the third and final exhumation of the body was conducted. This was the occasion during which relics of the sacred body of Bernadette would be taken. Doctor Comte was again asked to conduct the procedure. Once the surgical part was over, he had the body swathed in bandages leaving only the face and hands free. Bernadette's body was then put back into the coffin, but left uncovered. At this point, a precise imprint of the face was molded so that the firm of Pierre Imans in Paris could make a light wax mask based on the imprints and on some genuine photos. This was common practice for relics in France, as it was feared that although the body was mummified, the blackish tinge to the face and the sunken eyes and nose would make an unpleasant impression on the public. Imprints of the hands were also taken for the presentation of the body. Three years later in 1928, Doctor Comte published a report on the exhumation of the Blessed Bernadette in the second issue of the Bulletin de I'Association medicale de Notre–Dame de Lourdes."
You could probably do a google search and come up with more.
His body, however, doesn't look like anything you would want to put on public display, however, unless significant reconstruction was done on it.
From "Tales of Terror and Tragedy" by Edward Rowe Snow.
eastsider: I've got a copy of the "Incorruptales" somewhere.
Skepticism is in order. A better measure might be whether any documented miracles (not "wonders") have occured among non-Christians today. (Although, if so, it would still be by the grace of Christ). Anyway, the only miracles that I am aware of are Christian.
Here's documentation for healing in ancient times:
"Another way of developing a taxonomy of illness would be to study the anatomical ex-votos left at various healing shrines.(83) The body parts represented are few in kind, mainly eyes, ears, hands, feet, genitals, occasionally breasts and rarely internal organs.(84) Yet these objects can provide important clues as to a native taxonomy of illness. Certain shrines, moreover, contain a disproportion of organ-specific anatomical ex-votos, such as eye votives at the Athenian Asklepieion(85) or chest votives at the Amphiareion. This might be explained in several ways. Certain ethnic groups tend to become "ill" in certain areas of the body or to describe their syndrome of symptoms in culturally specific ways, a fact well documented by medical anthropologists.(86)"
From a Notre Dame University website
[I've checked this link prior to posting and it doesn't work. I saved the page to my hd] URL is www.nd.edu/~jneyrey1/miracles.htm I can't take the time to read it all right now but skimmed through it.
Offhand, I can't think of any healings outside of the Christian context, but I'll bet if I dug deeply enough into information from other cultures, I might find evidence or mention a few spectacular healings.
Having a western mindset (me), our God would get all the credit and glory, naturally.
And, naturally, Catholics have the edge on miracles and healings. I know protestants get some healings, too, but they seem to be less dramatic, but no less gratefully received. How do I know? I was a protestant and I've had several lesser healings in my family, also several non healings. When my kids were little I started reading the bible to them and we had warts disappear and a stomach problem corrected. That's just a couple. I personally escaped about three surgeries through what I believe were my prayers and faith, one when I was a child and don't remember asking God for it (it wasn't quite totally complete but my mother was stunned). Other times I wasn't so blessed.
My point was that I was being facetious in the use of the word "plain". If you think about it, holy water should be just as efficacious (please pardon my spelling; I can't easily spell check my posts; have to copy the word into my mail program), if not moreso, than water from any shrine. Forgive me also, but a lot of people would view the use of Lourdes water as superstition. One man's superstition is another man's sacramental.
I don't find Lourdes superstitious. Jesus sent the man to wash in the Pool of Siloam and in the OT the lepers went to the river Jordan, bathed and were healed per the instructions of a prophet (it's there somewhere but I don't want to take the time to find the exact quote).
The water from the Grotto at Lourdes itself is "plain". It is the Faith and Trust in God from our hearts that elicits miracles from God (through Mary). The whole event of Lourdes, including the water, is the external catalyst drawing us in our interior life through which we approach God for healing associated with the extraordinary favors He chose St. Bernadette and Lourdes for.
I've never understood why people can't receive healings through attendance at mass and prayer and the ministry of duly appointed living representatives like they did in the early church. Why must one go through other channels or invoke saints (I know they aren't dead but they are not inhabiting this earthly realm like the apostles did when they healed) to receive a healing?
Ad Iesus per Mariam. Here He confirms Mary as the Immaculate Conception. But I would think the central message of Lourdes from Mary to St. Bernadette was "...penance, penance, penance..." of which St. Bernadette fulfilled through the rest of her life.
I never really understood all this penance. I don't have a problem with it, but there is a distinction between penance and repentence. Repentence is turning away from sin. Penance is a small or large act aimed at making amends for sins committed. The protestant bibles translate the concept as repentence, whereas the catholic bibles use the word "penance". Some forms of penance appear obsessive-compulsive to me. Some do not.
Even in the Gospels Christ did not always heal everyone of physical infirmities where Faith was lacking, and those that He did, the people eventually grew old and died.
Yes, people eventually did die. Healing for the living gave their lives more quality before they had to die and enabled them to take care of themselves and their families rather than be a burden and live in shame and degradation having to beg (today living on SSI). The only people I know of in the bible who were not healed while Jesus was alive were those who had no faith (except the Centurian's daughter who probably had no faith of her own who was healed through the intercession of a living person). Maybe that's what you meant and I didn't read you exactly right. True, after the resurrection, some were not healed. Some of those who were not healed were sick and died because they received communion unworthily. I can't help wondering if that is true today because the people who are sick and dying in the catholic faith don't impress me as receiving communion unworthily whereas others who receive sacrilegious (sp?) communions are still robust years later, so it would appear anyway.
don't get caught up on external and quantitative comparisons concerning how many miracles, and to what people, they are given.
I can't help it. Too many who are sick, desire to be healed, deserve to be healed, and are not. People pray, pray and pray for them and nothing happens. It gets discouraging. I know people who have been infirm for so long they wouldn't know what to do if they got better. There are plenty of bad people who are not sickly all their lives.
It's a matter of trying to make sense of things that don't make sense any more. Maybe that's where I am making my mistake in trying to make sense of anything when it comes to religion. The early church seemed to make more sense of most things.
Now I'm not sure I mean any of this but I'll go ahead and post it anyway.
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