The best reasons to believe
What is the best reason to go to church every Sunday? If I were God I would say, “Because I said so.” That is sometimes the best answer a mother gives when a child asks, “Why?”
Jesus did say so! The best reason to believe? And the best reason to go to church? Jesus said. “Do this in memory of me.” When we love one another, our love stays alive, and God will remain in us always. “If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us” (1 John 4:12).
St Thomas Aquinas explains the signs God continues to give us to this day: by "accomplishing in a very visible way" works "far above the possibilities of nature"; by inspiring the predictions that the prophets made "long in advance"; and by allowing the "signs, miracles and wonders" that accompanied the testimony of the apostles and are still "today" confirmations reaching us through the saints, God has given all the proofs "that are fitting" to witness, manifest, confirm and guarantee the solidity of the Christian faith. (Summa Against the Gentiles).
A Eucharistic Miracle from mariedenazareth.com reports many miracles attending the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. One such happened in 1727 when thieves broke into Sainte-Marguerite’s parish (Belgium). They smashed the tabernacle, stole the ciborium and emptied the consecrated hosts into a watery ditch.
In the morning the parish priest discovered the theft. Later a man found the hosts in perfect condition immersed for several hours in the water. The priest and the church recognized the miracle. In the days that followed several people testified to unexplained healings. A chapel was built near the ditch, and a well was built to enable pilgrims to draw the miraculous water. Healings are still reported in certain years.
Another source of contemporary miracles is related to apparitions of Mary. One of these appeared above a Coptic church at Zeitoun, Cairo, at night. The apparitions were observed by hundreds of thousands including many non-Christians, civil and religious authorities.
Cures were authenticated by medical professionals, and conversions were deep and lasting. Pilgrims photographed the apparitions. This is but one example of the many apparitions that continue to happen to this very day.
In our own day we have the Eucharistic Miracle of Buenos Aires witnessed by Pope Francis when he was Archbishop there. A consecrated host that had been desecrated was found at the back of the church. Fr. Pezet put it into a glass of water in the tabernacle. Later the
the host transformed into a piece of bloody tissue much larger than the original.
Analysis of the tissue showed heart muscle in an inflammatory condition and containing a large number of white blood cells, indicating that the heart was alive at the time the sample was taken. It is male and AB blood type, the same as on the Shroud of Turin and the Facecloth of Oviedo. This specific piece of tissue appears to have come from a live, tortured subject.
Of the best reasons to believe, the Resurrection is the ultimate proof of Christ’s divinity. All of Jesus’ teachings were reaffirmed by his disciples’ miracles and signs described in Acts of the Apostles. Pope Pius XII confirmed this by saying: "The many wonderful external signs God has given…are sufficient to prove with certitude by the natural light of reason alone the divine origin of the Christian religion."
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