Dear Admins,
Assuming I can get a good OP going, I have heard that this topic might prove interesting. I would like to discuss some of the lesser known Catholic 'miracles' and I say Catholic because that is what I am familiar with.
To be specific, I was thinking of Incorruptibility, Eucharistic Miracles, Stigmata, and possibly such things as bilocution or ESP said to be possessed by certain priests.
This is not an attempt to discover whether or not these things can be proved as miracles i.e., supernatural phenomena, but to discuss possible scientific explanations, or whether some event that is unusual in nature could be used by God as a sign.
Also interested in parallels of the same type in other religions or scientific examples of the same phenomena happening elsewhere.
A brief description of Incorruptibility; in the RCC there are around 100 saints who are reported to be incorrupt i.e., their flesh, bones, brain, heart, or entire body were found to be preserved for an unnaturally long period of time. In a few cases there was obvious attempts to enbalm or mummify the body of a devout person, and in other cases the temperature of certain burial vaults is said to have hovered in a perfect range to avoid the decay caused by bacteria. Yet, in other cases their is no evident explanation yet. Good examples are St Zita who died in the 1300 century, and St Cherbel Maklouf who remained intact tho' found buried in mud.
Eucharistic miracles are cases in where the bread and wine used in Communion are said to have become actual flesh and blood. In some of them, the flesh was examined and found to be human heart tissue, and the blood to be human blood type AB. This is not so astonishing in itself, but it is reported that after centuries the flesh and blood have retained the properties of fresh human flesh, and the blood even when dry has retained the chemical properties of fresh blood, and that of a man in agony.
So what think ye?
™ Version 4.2
