Exploring the Miraculous. Michael O'Neill
“If we were in a position to suppose [there is a God], then no doubt the case for the occurrence of these particular miracles, as well as for that of the supreme miracle of the Resurrection, would be open and shut.”3
Many people who profess faith in God will contend that the big miracles (or at least the stories of them) happened only in ancient days but that smaller ones — the conversion of a hardened soul or the spontaneous healing of a disease — still may happen. But some of the more magnificent miracle stories (still purported to be happening today around the world) are looked at with suspicion at best. People of faith might find miracles frustratingly mysterious and question whether God is capricious: “Why are miracles given to some people and not to others?”
The strange terms stigmata, inedia, and locutions — found almost exclusively in the Catholic lexicon —might raise a few eyebrows or inspire an occasional rolling of the eye. Certainly apparitions, like miracles in general, are typically frowned on by scientists, academics, and secular humanists who, according to Fr. Dwight Longenecker, author of Quest for the Creed, likely find physical miracles “distasteful” and embarrassing because such miracles are “mad, subversive and unpredictable.” And as for visions, especially the alleged appearances of the Blessed Virgin Mary when she comes to the world with messages of peace and love and an occasional apocalyptic warning, atheists and agnostics might want to toss them into the same loony bin as UFOs and Bigfoot. Some Protestants have gone as far as to allege that these apparitions are some form of “Mariolatry” or, worse, devil worship. Some see interest in miracles as an overly pious fanaticism crossing the line of good taste into a twilight zone of religious delusion.
The fact is, miracles are important to each and every one of us. Even skeptics and atheists need to have an explanation for the unexplainable. We all pray (or hope) for miracles of one sort or another. Perhaps we beg God for an impossible comeback in a football game or beseech St. Anthony to help us find that lost wallet or wedding ring. We hope for a dream job or an out-of-our-league spouse, and our last and only resort seems to be some sort of divine intervention. When our loved ones are seriously ill, we approach God in great faith with our desperate plea that their lives might be spared. Sometimes the little coincidences of daily life seem to be miraculous reassurances that we are always under the care, protection, and watchful eye of a loving Father.
Our own miracle stories, big and small, are all woven into the vast tapestry of a faith tradition that embraces supernatural events and celebrates them in ways that we might not even realize. Catholics who wear the Miraculous Medal or the scapular in any of its various colors indirectly recall the time-honored apparitions of the Virgin Mary in which these sacramentals find their origins. When we pray the Rosary, we hark back to the legend that St. Dominic received this devotion in a vision, and if we pray between the decades the Fátima prayer,4 we remember that those words were given to the child visionaries by Our Lady of the Rosary at Fátima in 1917.
I have had an interest in miracles from a young age. I can remember in 1988 excitedly waiting for my seventh-grade religion teacher to give my class updates on the scientific investigation of the Shroud of Turin and being devastated by the results of the carbon-14 dating that placed the famous relic in the thirteenth century. I have worn a Miraculous Medal and a brown scapular for many years and have visited various apparition sites, shrines, and holy places, beginning with the Holy Land. I have attended beatifications and canonizations of saints, ceremonies witnessing to their heroically virtuous lives, attested to by great miracles. As a miracle researcher, I have interviewed stigmatics and seers, held rosaries that have turned gold, viewed rose petals with holy images emblazoned on them, and examined blessed dirt that reportedly has the power to cure great ills. Although I have never been graced with seeing a vision with my own eyes, I have sat in the presence of others as they claimed to see the Virgin Mary. I have talked with obstinate skeptics and with recipients of inexplicable cures and other miracles. Daily I receive e-mails and hear the personal stories of those who claim to have experienced miracles and others who desperately seek them. The accounts range from the truly unbelievable — the raising of a loved one from the dead — to the absurd — the finding of the face of Christ on the doggie door of a house.
I have been grateful for the opportunity to share the great stories of our Faith with audiences big and small — from women’s Rosary groups and gatherings of confraternities to enormous conference rooms packed with Marian devotees. I like to joke that miracle hunting does not pay well monetarily but that it pays big in personal connections and stories. At the end of speaking engagements, I am often approached by people with beautiful stories of the miraculous healing of their loved ones or with photos on their phone of fantastic images of light that they believe is a true miracle from heaven.
Many people approach me with two types of questions: “Whom do I talk to so that I can get my miracle investigated?” or “What will happen with Medjugorje [or with another modern supernatural phenomenon]?” Based on the variety in audience makeup alone, from a living room of simple, faithful devotees piously clutching their rosary beads to a country-club dining hall full of Catholic millionaires dressed to the nines, it seems that miracles resonate with all people of faith. Let’s face it — we all need a miracle at one point or another.
There are times at a social gathering when the conversation inevitably turns to the weather or to what everyone does for a living, and with the latter topic, I tend to get wide-eyed stares of shock, curiosity, or bewilderment when I reveal that I am a miracle researcher. Almost universally, however, from the skeptic who asks, “So, have you seen one yet?” to the believer who says, “Do I have a miracle story for you!” almost everyone seems to be fascinated by miracles.
Everyone loves a great miracle story, and the idea that miracles are still happening in the world can be cause for excitement. When I worked in Boston, my secretary once brought me some photos she had snapped of the hospital in Medford. The street was overflowing with people so that traffic had to be stopped. She got out of her car to find out what was going on and saw a mysterious image of Our Lady of Guadalupe forming in a window. (The window was later removed by the hospital to ease the traffic jam, and the pattern was later determined to be the result of condensation.)
The sharing of great stories aside, people commonly ask me how I came to become a miracle researcher. The inspiration for it, like many good inspirations in life, came from my mother when I was a little boy. She told me the story of how her mother had fallen away from the Catholic Faith — even became anti-Catholic — when my mother was young. My mother prayed fervently for the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe to help my grandmother. As many people commonly do when they pray desperately, she offered a bargain in exchange. My grandmother, miraculously or not, soon reverted to the Faith and became a model of devotion for her children and later for her grandchildren. Making good on her end of the deal, my mother became a schoolteacher when she grew up and taught her students and her own children the beautiful story of the apparitions of Our Lady of Guadalupe each year on her feast day, December 12. The story became a favorite of mine and brought me to consider the Guadalupe story to be the second greatest story ever told. Ever since then, apparitions were of keen interest to me and later materialized in my studies.
When I attended Stanford University, I took a break from my engineering major and science classes and enrolled in an archaeology class. Our final assignment was to identify a famous artifact and write on its significance. Much to the curiosity of my secular professor, I chose to explore the miraculous tilma of Our Lady of Guadalupe. In the process of my research and many hours in the library, I uncovered the rich history of miracles in the Catholic Faith. I had heard of the visions at Guadalupe, Lourdes, and Fátima but had no idea of the number of incredible reports of visions in the tradition of our Faith: more than 2,500 apparitions have been claimed by people of all walks of life from every corner of the globe. After I finished this college paper, I promised myself to return to this study someday, as I found it absolutely fascinating that so many people were making these claims and that the Church actually would risk its credibility to declare any of them worthy of belief.
At the end of my senior year of college, I received from Condoleezza Rice, the vice provost of the school at the time, a piece of advice that I will never forget: Become an expert in something. I took it to heart and sought to identify something I was passionate about,