australia's first saint

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http://www.news.com.au/national/pope-ap ... 5812085892

This is one of several definitions available on the web which are, more or less, the same.

Miracles
First published Wed Sep 4, 1996; substantive revision Fri Sep 16, 2005

Aquinas (Summa Contra Gentiles, III) says “those things are properly called miracles which are done by divine agency beyond the order commonly observed in nature (praeter ordinem communiter observatum in rebus).” A miracle, philosophically speaking, is never a mere coincidence no matter how extraordinary or significant. (If you miss a plane and the plane crashes, that is not a miracle unless God intervened in the natural course of events causing you to miss the flight.) A miracle is a supernaturally (divinely) caused event - an event (ordinarily) different from what would have occurred in the normal (“natural”) course of events. It is a divine overriding of, or interference with, the natural order. As such, it need not be extraordinary, marvelous or significant, and it must be something other than a coincidence, no matter how remarkable — unless the “coincidence” itself is caused by divine intervention (i.e., not really a coincidence at all). Miracles, however, are ordinarily understood to be not just products of divine intervention in the natural order, but extraordinary, marvelous and significant as well. Thus, Aquinas says a miracle is “beyond the order commonly observed;” and Dr. Eric Mascall says that the word “miracle” “signifies in Christian theology a striking interposition of divine power by which the operations of the ordinary course of nature are overruled, suspended, or modified” (Chamber's Encyclopaedia).


The many discussions on the conflicts between science and religion here and elsewhere frequently state that they do not conflict. If anywhere, this area indicates pretty clearly that they do have a very fundamental disagreement as to the operations of the universe since, although science freely admits that much is unknown, it never concedes that the laws of the universe permit violations. If they do seem to do so then the known laws require change to conform to the acknowledged phenomenon.

Bugger, I was going to start a thread on this.

Yep, the RCC has just confirmed that Mary MacKillop divinely interceded a case of leukaemia and another cancer. The wondrous event occurred when the patients prayed to the long dead Ms MacKillop and were rewarded with a cure.

I cannot believe that in this day and age we are still in all seriousness replacing 'how the heck did that happen' with 'I prayed to a long dead nun and she cured me'. These miraculous interventions occurred in 1961 and 1993. What is also incredibly concerning is our prime minister raised the matter with the pope. So not only are the majority of Catholics complete and utter delusional fools so to is our leader

Ah well once again Mr Marx is correct, religion really is the opium of the masses.

I laughed at just how pathetic this "story" was. While I admire the woman for her charity work, this rubbish about her being a saint decreases my chances of ever liking humanity by 18.92 points.

How ridiculous is it that people can be so deluded as to think that two people in around a hundred years praying to this woman and being cured of a disease is a miracle? I'm sure thousands of people prayed to her for help and many of them died. So does that mean that God picks and chooses the people that he saves? What kind of monster is that, one who decides that hundreds of people can drop dead for the hell of it?

It's rubbish. And it's worse when I think that the Prime Minister believes it as well.

If one accepts the existence of a perfect God who is well aware of His creation being second guessed by a mere human to controvert a natural consequence of the way things are ordained happen - in other words, a miracle, then the very idea of a miracle is blasphemy.

^ this has also crossed my mind, I am sure the catholic devotees will have some insipid rational for why you are wrong

Good point, I too am sure as the previous poster is, that the Christians (Catholics) will find some way of justifying this. No matter how ridiculous it is.

The Catholic solution, of course, can justify assumed deviation from God's plan on the basis that the saintly miracle was merely a part of the plan but that leads back to confrontation with their oft cited assertion that humans have free will and are therefore guilty of original sin. I can't see any way out of that one.

Whilst your arguments might seem sound, I must contribute here if for no other reason than to provide some balance to all the posts on this topic thus far.

It's not necessary for people of faith to explain their lack of logic if the circumstance in question is providing a benefit that doesn't involve harming anyone else. This story is providing some people with inspiration and renewed faith in what gives meaning to their life.

The story of the sainthood is not harming anyone directly, however I would counter this with the suggestion it could exacerbate feelings of being wronged or confused in those people whose experiences with the religion in question have not at all been beneficial.

That aside, I personally love this story. I enjoy having faith in the possibility of magic. If a logical explanation for this is required then I'll provide one - life can totally suck. Even if there is nothing beyond this life - faith for some can make it at least tolerable.

As a child I also was fascinated by magic and the popularity of magicians as showpeople is ubiquitous. But it must be understood that miracles and magic are a total assault on the principles of a rational universe. If someone "miraculously" becomes cured of a cancer it benefits the world far more to comprehend what really happened so that that occurrence could be understood and applied generally as a rational way to cure cancer. To assign it to the region of the permanently unknown is to lose something hugely valuable and to say that God did it is to mindlessly toss away a marvelous opportunity to benefit the world. Religion, in that action becomes, for all practical purposes, criminal.

What's wrong with wanting to assault a universe full of suffering no matter how rational it is?! I say tear it asunder! Overthrow the reign of rational thought! Turn it on its head! This may not cure cancer - but if it's going to alleviate suffering for some people I fail to see the crime here.

If they didn't know what the actual cure was then no one's hiding anything by attributing it to the power of prayer. Some people receive comfort from this belief, whilst others (the non-religious types) assure themselves by continuuing to strive for a real scientific cure. If the latter wasn't still occurring - I'd agree with you that it would be of great concern. However, fortunately that's not the case. Because people like you exist! lol

That said, I don't think it's not within the realms of possibility that a group of people praying powerfully, or one person with a powerful mind praying - can affect a change.

If you don't look you don't find. Elevating ignorance to a virtue is a prime social crime.

Who's not looking? The ones not looking for a cure in science? Or the ones not looking for a cure in magic?

Right. Next time you get cancer or bleeding gums I'm sure you'll go to a magician. I follow other procedures.

I keep myself covered and go for both! Even if prayers don't work as a cure for a physical ailment, they still work as a cure for ailments of the mind. This is something I can say with certainty gained through experience.

And as I'm a firm believer in appropriate conditions being created to correspond with a certain outcome, I definitely don't shun medical science. And then if the medical treatment fails (as it sometimes does) I have the practice of mind training to help endure the physical suffering. It's a boon!

That said, some treatments developed in medical science can be more bizarre than some religious practices - and even still in this present time they're trying to enforce some crazy crazy procedures on their patients. I hope the patients have a lot of patience!

Right. Merry Christmas and good luck.