Dear Parishioners,

G. K. Chesterton once said, “The most incredible thing about miracles is that they happen.” This point is profound because often we can think that miracles are something that only gullible people believe and if someone believes in miracles they must be a gullible person. This is just circular logic, though. It assumes the falsity of miracles and then works backwards to falsify the witnesses of those miracles. But, like Chesterton says, miracles do happen and that is really the only reason why anyone talks about them.

Personally, I have not seen a miracle. But I believe that God has interceded in the world because of what has been told to me. When someone tells me that they were about to die but were miraculously healed after receiving extreme unction or that they witnessed a loved one’s body glowing when they died, I believe them because I have no reason not to. When I hear stories about what happened with miracles like at Fatima Portugal in 1917 or the stigmata of St. Padre Pio, I likewise believe it because of the amount of reporting and documentation on these miracles. These miracles are not the sole reason for me to believe the faith (which relies on Jesus rising from the dead). If any one of them were proven false, I would accept it and move on. But they are an encouragement to believe and might even make someone more open to the faith.

Recently, this point was brought home to me after I heard an interview on the Pints with Aquinas podcast. Matt Fradd was talking to a recent convert named Joe Schmid who came into the Church this past Easter because of his research on miracles. Schmid is a doctoral student in Philosophy at Princeton University who was initially very skeptical about all claims about God. None of the arguments for God’s existence heendsed appealed to him because he saw an incoherent clash between God’s goodness and evil in the world. It was not until he really looked into miracles that he began to be more open to the faith.

Schmid researched Catholic miracles and came to the conclusion that they were incredibly well documented, could not be explained and pointed out the truths of the Catholic faith. For instance, at Lourdes in the 19th century, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared and proclaimed herself to be the Immaculate Conception to young Bernadette Soubirous who had no way of knowing much about that dogma. Or, one could point to all the numerous Eucharistic miracles where the host at Mass becomes sensibly flesh and blood. In this interview, he gives so many more examples and through these miracles he found out the world is greater than his skepticism.

So, I highly recommend you look up this interview. It can be found on Youtube or where you listen to podcasts. It is titled, “Popular Youtube Skeptic Becomes Catholic (Joe Schmid) | Ep. 593” and was published on August 24 on the Pints with Aquinas channel. I found it to be a great help and you might enjoy it as well.

God Bless!

Fr. Carter