There are only two miracles Catholics must believe in by definition: Jesus' incarnation (that is, his embodiment in human form) and his resurrection. Catholics are not required to believe in modern-day miracles - or indeed other miracles recorded throughout history - rather the Church classifies alleged miracles into one of three categories:

• "not worthy of belief": if the event is determined to be fraudulent, or not from God.
• "nothing contrary to the faith": when it is decided the reported event might or might not be of supernatural origin and nothing is found to be contrary to faith or morals.
• "worthy of belief": when the supernatural character of the miracle is deemed worthy of belief and nothing is contrary to faith or morals.

The responsibility of classifying reported miracles depends on the context. For example, the responsibility of assessing miracles attributed to a candidate for sainthood lies with the "Congregation for the Causes of Saints" in the Vatican, whereas natural miracles may be the responsibility of the local bishop, although he may call on the help of others and Rome.

Witnesses of supposed miracles are investigated to determine their authenticity and to ensure they are mentally sound, honest, sincere and of upright conduct. The type of investigation into the miracle itself varies depending on its type, but always a thorough investigation by relevant experts must conclude beyond doubt that the miracle was scientifically inexplicable; the miracle, or message from the miracle, is theologically acceptable and morally sound; and the miracle led to some positive benefit, either physically, mentally or spiritually. As an example, in approving healing miracles, the complex process follows seven basic rules:

• The disease must be serious (not a flu, or a cold, or a simple fever)
• The diagnosis must be certified (there must be no doubt that the disease exists)
• It must be organic (in other words the healing must affect the body)
• No known therapy can explain the healing
• The healing must be instant and unexpected
• The healing must be complete
• The healing must be definitive (no relapse)

Incidentally, I've also heard people say things like miracles don't prove anything, because there's loads of religions and miracles are claimed in most of them. While there are lots of religions, most of the world's religious belong to a similar belief.

Bearing in mind the world's population of about 7 billion people, the numbers of adherents to the main religions are as follows:

• Christianity: 2.4 billion
• Islam: 1.8 billion
• Hinduism: 1.15 billion
• Buddhism: 521 million
• Sikhism: 30 million
• Judaism: 14 million

Christianity, Islam and Judaism are, among other smaller groups, called Abrahamic religions. That is, they are a development and different understanding of God from the ancient Israelites and their worshipof the God of Abraham. Abraham lived around 2000 BC and Judaism was founded circa 1500 BC. Around 33 AD, thanks to Jesus, the Christian sect of the Jewish people was born and Christianity subsequently spread throughout the world. The Christians believe Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of God, while the Jews do not recognise this. Muslims believe that Islam is a faith that has always existed and that it was gradually revealed to humanity by a number of prophets, but the final and complete revelation of the faith was made through the Prophet Muhammad in the 7th century AD. Islam recognises the same prophets as the Jews and, as such, the Christian Old Testament, but they believe Jesus was not the Son of God, rather he was a prophet. They do, however, believe, as Christians believe, that Jesus will come again.

Buddhists do not believe in a personal god, but they are similar to the Abrahamic religions in that they believe in an afterlife - which they believe can be achieved by focussing on spiritual development to eliminate all negative desires - and they teach loving kindness to one's neighbour. Sikhism is even more similar to the Abrahamic religions in its core beliefs that: there is only one God, who is without form, or gender; everyone has direct access to God and everyone is equal before God; and they teach that a good life is lived as part of a community, by living honestly and caring for others.

Given the similarity of the main religions and the Catholic Church's teaching on non-Christian religions is The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all of humanity why wouldn't God intercede for people of other religions? To my mind, given that all religions are trying to understand God, miracles in other religions would seem to only add weight to the argument for God's existence and continued interest in the world.

Given relatively easy research - i.e. searching the internet, rather than digging through library archives - I've found there are many miracles approved by the Church that have been tested with the rigour of modern scientific capability.

There are, of course, plenty of healing miracles, but there are also natural miracles, sometimes witnessed by thousand of people. In the rest of this chapter, I've brought together a few that I find astounding and am amazed that more people don't know about. Miracles such as these provide modern evidence for the existence of God as described in the bible.

The Miracle of the Sun

The "Miracle of the Sun" was witnessed by over 100,000 people at Fatima, Portugal on 13^th October 1917. After much investigation, the Church declared the miracle worthy of belief on the 13^th October 1930.

This marked the first time in history that God performed a miracle at a predicted time and place, aside from the resurrection of Jesus.

The miracle, or miracles, were that of Our Lady, the mother of Jesus, appearing to three shepherd children, Lucia Dos Santos, aged 10, and her cousins Francisco Marto, aged 9, and Jacinta Marto, aged 7, each month from May 1917 to October 1917.

Three months prior to the final visitation, the children were able to predict that a miracle would occur then, on 13^th October, so that everyone would believe in the message which they said they had received from heaven. Interest in the apparitions leading up to October grew to such an extent that at the last visitation over 100,000 people were there to witness what has been dubbed "The Miracle of the Sun".

During the third apparition, 13^th July 1917, Our Lady gave the message to the children, which was:

This war [WW1] will end, but if men do not refrain from offending God, another and more terrible war will begin during the pontificate of Pius XI. When you see a night that is lit by a strange and unknown light [this occurred on January 28, 1938], you will know it is the sign God gives you that he is about to punish the world with war and with hunger, and by the persecution of the Church and the Holy Father.

To prevent this, I shall come to the world to ask that Russia be consecrated to my Immaculate Heart, and I shall ask that on the First Saturday of every month Communions of reparation be made in atonement for the sins-of the world. If my wishes are fulfilled, Russia will be converted and there will be peace; if not, then Russia will spread her errors throughout the world, bringing new wars and persecution of the Church; the good will be martyred and the Holy Father will have much to suffer; certain nations will be annihilated. But in the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she will be converted, and the world will enjoy a period of peace. In Portugal the faith will always be preserved.

I expected this section would be no more than a few paragraphs, detailing only the Miracle of the Sun itself - section "13^th October 1917". However, as I read about the miracle from various sources, it became apparent that the political context of the time adds an interesting dimension - at least I thought so (and I'm writing this) - and the lead-up to the 13^th October 1917 explains why 100,000 people were at the right place at the right time to witness the miracle in the first place.

Portugal in 1917

Unlike the Portugal of today, the country was 7 years into a communist government which had oppressed the Catholic church and vehemently opposed all forms of religiousness.

In 1910, republicans overthrew the monarchy of King Manuel and established the "First Republic". The new communist republic was, much like every communist state the world over, intensely opposed to religion - indeed, the new government was strongly opposed to anything that may have undermined the authority of the state.

The new Prime Minister guided a number of new laws through parliament which placed the Church under the control of the state; terminated the theology program at the University of Coimbra; closed many seminaries (priest training schools); eliminated the observance of national holy days; secularized cemeteries; and nationalized some Church property. The anticlerical feeling was fomented in a number of national newspapers, so much so that violent attacks on Christians became commonplace. Between 1911-1916, nearly 2,000 priests, monks and nuns were killed by anti-Christian groups. After seven years under the communist regime, by 1917 Portugal was a very different place to what is was before 1910 and what it became again, soon after 1917.

13^th May 1917

As was common practice for rural children in Portugal at the time, the three children around which this miracle centres, Lucia Dos Santos (10), Francisco Marto (9) and Jacinta Marto (7), would take the sheep out to graze, say the rosary together, and play together.

The first Marian apparition occurred on 13 May 1917 as the children were tending to their sheep at Cova da Iria, Fatima. They had had their lunch, and, as usual, had started to pray the rosary, when they heard lightning in a clear sky. Fearing a storm was approaching, they decided to head home. As they prepared to leave, a strange light in the sky moved toward them. The children reported that, although astonished, they felt no fear. They claimed a beautiful lady appeared before them, above the holm oak tree, wearing a pure white mantle, which was edged with gold, which went to her feet. In her hands the beads of a rosary shone like stars, with its crucifix the most radiant gem of all. During this first visit the apparition told the children not to be afraid and that she came from Heaven. She asked them to pray the rosary and to return to the same spot on the thirteenth of every month. Then the apparition returned the same way it had come.

The first apparition was witnessed by only the three children. Although they had promised not to tell anyone what they saw, the youngest, Jacinta, could not help but tell her family and neighbours about the beautiful lady.

As news of what the children claimed spread throughout the village much interest was shown to the children and the two families: some curious and some outright hostile, such that Lucia's mother became worried and desperately tried to make Lucia confess she had lied.

13^th June 1917

By the 13th June, dozens gathered to follow the children to holm oak at Cova da Iria, the site of the alleged apparitions. This time, the Lady showed the children her Immaculate Heart, pierced with thorns representing the sins of mankind. Lucia asked Mary for the healing of a sick person, which Mary said would be granted with his conversion. Lucia again asked Mary to take the children to heaven, and while Mary promised to take Jacinta and Francisco soon, she told Lucia that she must stay on earth some time longer. The onlookers testified that they saw a cloud above the tree where the children saw the Lady.

After the second apparition, Lucia's mother became increasingly worried that the three children were deceiving more people and so she took her to the parish priest, in order that she should confess her lies. The priest put such doubt in the ten-year-old's mind about the source of the apparitions that Lucia resolved not go the next month.

13^th July 1917

On the 13th July, Lucia felt compelled to change her mind and went with her two companions to Cova da Iria. During this apparition, Lucia asked the Lady to reveal her identity, and the Lady promised the children that she would reveal her identity fully in October, and perform a miracle on that day for all to see and believe. The Lady also gave the children a great secret which they were ordered not to reveal.

Since the last apparition, word and curiosity had spread such that this time the crowd had grown to 5000. Many of of the crowd reported being able to hear a faint, indescribable sound, believed to be the Lady's voice. Witnesses also recounted a change in atmosphere: when the Lady appeared, the sky darkened, and the humid, hot summer air of Portugal suddenly became cool and pleasant. The crowd also heard a large clap of thunder that shook the ground at the time of the Lady's departure.

13^th August 1917

The children were due to visit "the Lady" on August 13th, but the local mayor, embarrassed in front of the secular ruling authorities by the growing belief in the apparitions and desperate to quell its growth, kidnapped the children. Under the ruse of offering the children and their parents a ride in his car to the site to see the Lady, he abducted the children and threw them into the local prison. The childred were forced to share cells with hardened criminals - the children were only 7, 9 and 10 years old.

During two days of imprisonment, officials tried to get the children to admit that everything that they had told the crowd was either put up to them by someone else, or was a hoax of their own making.

The young children were threatened with being thrown into a vat of boiling oil if they didn't reveal the secret: after two hours in prison, all three were taken to the courtroom across a courtyard from the jail, where the magistrate told the youngest, seven-year-old Jacinta, first The oil is boiling...If you tell the secret we shall let you go, otherwise... Jacinta, no longer crying, remained silent. The judge growled, Take her away! Throw her in the oil!

Next, nine-year-old Francisco was dragged before the judge: Your sister has already been boiled in oil because she didn't tell the secret. Now it's your turn. Out with it! If you want to save yourself and the other girl, tell it.

Francisco protested, I can't...I can't tell it to anyone! The judge shouted that Francisco should also be thrown in the oil. As Francisco was dragged from the courtroom through the door his sister had just been taken, the magistrate and the rest of the court hoped to see the young boy - with all these threats and without the reassurance of his parents - break down, but he remained stoic.

Similarly, Lucia, who was the eldest of the children, but still only aged ten, did not reveal the secret or deny what they had already said about the apparitions, despite thinking her cousins had already been boiled alive in oil and she would be next.

Keen to avoid a bloody clash with thousands of indignant citizens at such an early stage of this strange conflict with an "apparition", the civil authorities sent the children back to their homes.

The children's kidnap and incarceration meant they missed the meeting with the Lady on the 13th August, and importantly for the authorities, the crowd gathered for nothing. The Lady appeared to the children privately a few days later, on Sunday 19th August, and asked them to return on the 13th of the next month, to continue praying and told them that on the last month she would perform a miracle so that all could believe.

13^th September 1917

Rather than deterring the crowds, the imprisonment of the children, the behaviour of the mayor, and the magnificent bravery of the young children under the threat of a horrible death, only helped to spread the word of the apparitions and convinced many more that the children were telling the truth.

At the fifth apparition, the crowd had grown to 30,000. The path to the site of the apparitions was packed with people asking the children to petition the Lady for healing of relatives and themselves, for conversions, and to bring loved ones safely home from the war. It took a number of men to walk ahead and clear a path for the children for them to be able to reach the site.

When the children reached the holm oak at Cova da Iria, they began to say the Rosary with the people. Shortly afterwards, they saw the flash of light, and then the Lady appeared on the holm oak. The Lady told the children that people must

Continue to pray the Rosary in order to obtain the end of the war. In October Our Lord will come, as well as Our Lady of Dolours and Our Lady of Carmel. Saint Joseph will appear with the Child Jesus to bless the world. God is pleased with your sacrifices.

Lucia said to the Lady, I was told to ask you many things, the cure of some sick people, of a deaf-mute..., to which the lady replied, Yes, I will cure some, but not others. In October I will perform a miracle so that all may believe.

Although only the children saw the Lady, the visible signs of Her presence became even more pronounced to the crowd. Several witnesses said they were able to see a globe of light, and then a pillar of cloud about sixteen feet high by the tree where the Lady appeared. Many onlookers also described a shower of small white objects - thought to be snowflakes or rose petals - that fell from the sky but disappeared before they touched the ground.

13^th October 1917

By the final apparition, on October 13th 1917, word and interest had spread far and wide. People from all over Portugal and beyond had assembled at the hillside and along the path to the holm oak at Cova da Iria, either because of the sincere belief that the children were telling the truth: a visitor from heaven had been appearing and a miracle was indeed going to happen, or with the expectation to ridicule the simpletons who expected to see a miracle. In any case, despite the torrential, cold rain that had been falling all night and continued to fall throughout the morning, the crowd this time was over 100,000.

The authorities also seemed to be taking the reported apparitions seriously - or at least the growing belief in them. The crowd who were trying to make their way to the site of the apparitions found their way blocked by soldiers with orders to keep them from congregating at the holm oak. Despite the soldiers trying to disperse the crowd by charging at them with their bayonets - resulting in injuries such as one man who had his hand pierced by a bayonet while trying to protect his father from the soldiers - the sheer weight of numbers of the crowd meant they eventually broke through the soldiers' cordon and could gather at the holm oak.

Crowds lined the route to Cova da Iria from the children's homes, and as the three children made their way through, accompanied by their parents who genuinely feared for their children's lives at the hands of the authorities or the crowd, those in the crowd pressed in on them, asking them to petition the Lady for their causes. When Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta arrived at the holm oak of Cova da Iria, Lucia asked the people to shut their umbrellas, despite the driving rain, and to say the Rosary together.

The Miracle from the Children's Perspective

Sister Lucia - ten-year-old Lucia later became a nun - described what she, Jacinta and Francisco saw on 13th October at solar noon, in an interview.

A little later, we saw the flash of light, and then Our Lady appeared on the holm oak:

What do you want of me?

I want to tell you that a chapel is to be built here in my honour. I am the Lady of the Rosary. Continue always to pray the Rosary every day. The war is going to end, and the soldiers will soon return to their homes.

I have many things to ask you: the cure of some sick persons, the conversion of sinners, and other things...

Some yes, but not others. They must amend their lives and ask forgiveness for their sins.

Looking very sad, Our Lady said:

Do not offend the Lord our God any more, because he is already so much offended.

Then, opening her hands, she made them reflect on the sun, and as she ascended, the reflection of her own light continued to be projected on the sun itself.

In another interview, Sister Lucia gives more detail of what the children saw in the light: the light reflected back from the sky, much stronger than the sun. Figures in light appeared - Our Lady as she had always appeared to us - Saint Joseph holding the Infant [Jesus] in light with Our Lady, both Saint Joseph and the Infant blessing the crowd...The light changes and suddenly Our Lady becomes Our Lady of Sorrows...Saint Joseph is replaced by Our Lord and Our Lord blesses the crowd...and then the light changes again and Our Lady becomes Our Lady of Mount Carmel while Our Lord remains. The light fades. We hear people shouting. I think that what the people saw had been a reflection of the brilliance of the vision

Immediately after the apparition, Lucia was filled with an overwhelming desire to tell all the world that war is a punishment for sins and that people must do penance and cease offending God because he is so much offended. She remembers that a man suddenly picked her up and put her on his shoulder. 10-year-old Lucia took advantage of this position to shout to all the people: You must pray and do penance!

The Miracle from the Crowd's Perspective

Although the 100,000-strong crowd gathered on the mountain didn't see what the three children saw, they were all left with no doubt that a miracle had occurred. While the children were witnessing the apparition, the crowd witnessed the sun "dance" for ten minutes.

A light was seen in the sky which looked like the sun. It was visible within a radius of more than twenty miles, clearly defined (not something seen through a fog or mist), whirled in the sky like a wheel of fire, threw off shafts of coloured light which coloured objects on the ground. After several minutes, it seemed suddenly to loose itself from the sky and to plummet toward the earth, causing the crowd to believe that the world was about to end. It was over in twelve minutes.

Mario Godinho, a member of an important and distinguished Portuguese family and an engineer, wrote his testimony to the author John Affert, who was researching the miracle at Fatima for his book.

I live eighteen miles from Fatima. And in May of 1917 we were told about extraordinary apparitions, but the news came to us mixed up with the fantasy of the people. Naturally I did not believe. I sincerely supposed it was only imagination of someone.

But my mother (who was a saintly woman) believed from the beginning and asked me to take her in my car to Cova da Iria on the 13th of June. By a poor and miserable road in our Peugeot (license number 2015), after many difficulties, we managed to get there. Below the road, in a depression of the ground, we saw some dozens of people. We left the car, jumped over some stones, and met the three shepherds who had lighted candles in their hands. Other people like us were waiting for the apparition. In front of the children there was a little holm oak tree. They said that on that holm oak Our Lady would appear.

We talked to the children, pointed to our car parked on the road, and told them to meet us afterwards there. So they did, and we took them home where we asked them many questions. I came back to my own home very disappointed and sincerely convinced that the poor children were mistaken. I dared not tell my friends of my going to the Cova da Iria. I would have been considered a simpleton.

...At my mother's request, I went once more to Cova da Iria in August at the time of the apparitions. Once more I came back discouraged and disappointed. But that time, something extraordinary happened. My mother, who had had a large tumour in one of her eyes for many years, was cured. The doctors who had attended her said they could not explain such a cure. Still, I did not believe in the apparitions

Finally, and again at my mother's request, I went to the Cova da Iria once more on the 13th of October...In spite of what had happened to my mother, I was disappointed and did not believe in the apparitions. So I sat inside my car. Then all at once I noticed that everybody looked at the sky. Natural curiosity attracted my attention, and I got out of the car and looked at the sky, too. I saw in a clear area of sky (where one should not be able to stare at the sun) the very sun. It was like a disc of smoked glass illuminated behind and turning over itself, giving us the impression that it was coming down over our heads. I could then see the sun more easily than I can see the moon on a full moon night. From those hundreds of mouths I heard words of belief and of love to the Blessed Virgin. And then I believed. I was sure I had not been the victim of suggestion. I saw that sun as I never saw it again.

Antonio Antunes de Oliveira was 32 at the time of the miracle and had been to the Cova even before the day of the miracle because he was a friend of the uncle of two of the children. The following is an excerpt from an interview on the subject.

Did you believe that a miracle took place?

At first I did not believe.

Was it raining very much?

Yes, it rained much. I was wet. There was a great deal of mud.

What did you see?

I looked at the sun. It did not hurt my eyes... There were many people kneeling in the mud, and I was with them.

Were you far from the children?

Yes, I was far from the children, and could only see them when they were taken up in the arms of some people. One of these people was Joao Machado, who had no faith.

What else did you see?

I looked at the sun and saw it spinning like a disc, rolling on itself. I saw the people changing color. They were stained with the colors of the rainbow. Then the sun seemed to fall down from the sky.

Were you afraid?

I was afraid that the sun would fall down as the people said that the world was going to end.

Was everyone around you afraid?

They were afraid and screaming.

And what did they say about it?

They said it was a miracle.

What did you think?

I thought it was a great miracle.

Did this affect your life?

I now go to Fatima almost every month, and continue to have always the same faith.

Father Lourenço, a schoolboy at the time, witnessed the miracle from his village of Alburitel, 9 miles away.

I feel incapable of describing what I saw. I looked fixedly at the sun which seemed pale and did not hurt my eyes. Looking like a ball of snow, revolving on itself, it suddenly seemed to come down in a zigzag, menacing the earth. Terrified, I ran and hid myself among the people, who were weeping and expecting the end of the world at any moment. It was a crowd which had gathered outside our local village school and we had all left classes and run into the streets because of the cries and surprised shouts of men and women who were in the street in front of the school when the miracle began.

There was an unbeliever there who had spent the morning mocking the ‘simpletons' who had gone off to Fatima just to see an ordinary girl. He now seemed paralysed, his eyes fixed on the sun. He began to tremble from head to foot, and lifting up his arms, fell on his knees in the mud, crying out to God. But meanwhile the people continued to cry out and to weep, asking God to pardon their sins. We all ran to the two chapels in the village, which were soon filled to overflowing. During those long moments of the solar prodigy, objects around us turned all colors of the rainbow... When the people realized that the danger was over, there was an explosion of joy.

There are many other witness statements from the 100,000 gathered on the hillside and from people in the surrounding areas, which all reported the same phenomenon.

Even the prominent newspapers at the time Diario de Noticias ("The Daily News") and O Século ("The Century"), which were both predominantly anti-religious - and after their reports on Fatima returned to attacking religion and specifically the events of Fatima - reported the event similarly to the faithful and the converted.

Diario de Noticias published: At one o'clock the rain stopped. The sky had a certain grey clarity but seemed to suddenly be getting darker. The sun seemed veiled in gauze. We could look at it without strain. The grey tint of mother-of-pearl began changing as if into a silver disc that was growing and growing... until it broke the clouds! Then the silvery sun, still shrouded in that greyish light, began to rotate and wander within the circle of the receded clouds! The people cried out with one voice. Thousands, transported by ecstasy fell to their knees upon the muddy ground. Then, as if it were shining through the stained glass windows of a great cathedral, the light became a rare blue, spreading its rays upon the nave... Slowly the blue faded away and now the light seemed to be filtered through yellow. Yellow spots were falling now upon the white kerchiefs and dark shirts of coarse wool. They were spots which repeated themselves indefinitely over the landscape. All the people were weeping and praying bareheaded, weighted down by the greatness of the miracle. These were seconds, moments, that seemed hours...

Similarly, O Século reported: From beside the parked carriages and where many thousands stood, afraid to descend into the muddy soil of the Cova da Iria, we saw the immense crowd turn toward the sun at its highest, free of all clouds. The sun seemed to us like a plate of dull silver. It could be seen without the least effort. It did not blind or burn. It seemed as though an eclipse were taking place. All of a sudden a tremendous shout burst forth, ‘Miracle, miracle!' Before the astonished eyes of the people, whose attitude carried us back to Biblical times, and who, white with terror, heads uncovered, gazed at the sun which trembled and made brusque and unheard of movement beyond all cosmic laws, the sun seemed literally to dance in the sky

The Legacy of the Miracle

The newspaper accounts - written in anti-religious newspapers - did not suggest a church conspiracy or a case of mass hysteria was behind the Miracle of the Sun, nor did they give a different account of the events. This fact alone was highly surprising and shows the accounts are accurate and that something truly exceptional happened that day.

It is clear the Sun didn't move from it's position - or the Earth move towards the Sun - as this would have been registered the world over. It is also clear that what was reported happened: the sheer number of independent witnesses discounts collaboration, and the same reports from sceptical witnesses many miles away discounts mass hysteria and suggestibility. If the event could have been discredited, the Portuguese government of the time would have done so. If the event were a meteorological phenomenon, even though it is an unprecedented one, one might discount the event as simply nature, if it weren't for the fact that over 100,000 people from all over Portugal had journeyed to a specific hillside at a pre-determined time, on the say-so of three peasant shepherd children.

Miracles from the Saints

Mary, the mother of Jesus, is considered to be the greatest intercessor of all the saints. There have been many reported apparitions of Our Lady, some of which have been recorded by The Miracle Hunter, and many healings attributed to her intercession.

However, Our Lady is not the only saint who intercedes for us. There are many, many recognised saints in the Catholic Church.

Becoming a Saint

The Vatican has a department, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, that oversees the complex process that leads to the canonization of saints. After preparing a case, including the approval of miracles, the case is presented to the Pope, who decides whether or not to proceed with beatification and canonization.

The process of making someone a saint doesn't normally start until at least five years after their death, to allow for emotions to calm and for the case to be evaluated objectively. After that period, the bishop of the diocese where the person died can open an investigation into the life of the individual, to see whether they lived their lives with sufficient holiness and virtue to be considered for sainthood. Evidence is gathered on the person's life and deeds, including witness testimonies, and if there is sufficient evidence, the bishop asks the Congregation for the Causes of Saints for permission to open the case. If the case is accepted for consideration, the person can be called a "servant of God".

The Congregation for the Causes of Saints scrutinises the evidence of the candidate's holiness, work and signs that people have been drawn to prayer through their example. If the Congregation approves the case, it is passed to the Pope, and if the Pope decides that the person lived a life of "heroic virtue", they can then be called "venerable".

To reach the next stage, beatification, and be called "blessed", a miracle needs to be attributed to prayers made to the individual after their death. The prayers being granted are seen as proof that the individual is already in heaven, and hence able to intercede with God on others' behalfs.

The final step, canonization, requires a second verified miracle to be attributed to the intercession of the deceased, after they have been beatified. Once canonized, the person can be referred to as "saint".

As with all miracles, approval of the alleged miracles only comes after the evidence has been through a stringent review, involving experts in relevant scientific fields.

Miracles Attributed to the Intercession of Saint Pope John Paul II

The miracles attributed to the intercession of the late Pope John Paul II that confirmed his beatification and sainthood are the healing of a French nun, Sister Marie Simon-Pierre, and a Costa Rican lawyer, Floribeth Mora Diaz.

Sister Marie Simon-Pierre

I was ill, and now I am cured. The rest is for the Church to decide.

Parkinson's disease is a progressive and irreversible neurodegenerative disease, caused by a loss of nerve cells in the brain, leading to a reduction in dopamine. Dopamine plays a vital role in regulating the movement of the body, hence sufferers typically experience the recognisable symptoms of involuntary shaking of particular parts of the body, slow movement and stiff and inflexible muscles. Although its symptoms can be managed, Parkinson's cannot be cured and its effects cannot be reversed.

Pope John Paul II famously suffered very badly with Parkinson's disease. As a result of the disease, he went from being an avid skier, which earnt him the nickname the Daredevil of the Tatras, to being wheelchair-bound and visibly debilitated.

Diagnosed in 2001, at the age of only 40, with also having Parkinson's disease, Sister Marie Simon-Pierre saw the disease progress in the pontiff ahead of her own. As her symptoms worsened, she admitted to no longer feeling able to watch John Paul on television, because he suffered from a more advanced stage of her disease. I saw myself in the years to come, to be honest, in a wheelchair she said.

Sister Marie Simon-Pierre was affected on the whole left side of her body, causing her left arm to go limp and immobile, which caused her great difficulty, as she was left-handed. After three years, the initial phase of the disease, slow but progressive, was followed by an aggravation of her symptoms, which included an increase of the trembling, more rigidity, pain, and insomnia.

After Pope John Paul II's death in April 2005, her condition began to worsen week by week. She was unable to write and if she attempted it, what she wrote was unintelligible. She could drive only for short trips because her left leg would stiffen and her rigidity would impede her driving. Consequently, she was about to quit work as a 40-bed maternity ward supervisor in Aix-en-Provence, as her symptoms affected her ability to do her work and left her exhausted.

Shortly after the death of Pope John Paul II, May 13^th, members of Sister Marie Simon-Pierre's congregation began to pray for her healing through his intercession. The following is Sister Marie Simon-Pierre's own testimony.

On June 1^st, I was finished; I struggled to stand and to walk. On June 2^nd in the afternoon, I went to find my superior to ask her if I could leave my work. She encouraged me to endure a bit longer until my return from Lourdes in August, and she added: John Paul II has not yet said his last word. Then, Mother Superior gave me a pen and told me to write: "John Paul II." It was 5 o'clock in the afternoon. With effort, I wrote: "John Paul II." We remained in silence before the illegible letters, then the day continued as usual.

At the end of the evening prayer, at 9 o'clock at night, I went to my office before going to my room. I felt the need to pick up the pen and to write, just as if someone within me was saying: Pick up the pen and write. It was between 9:30 and 9:40 at night. To my great surprise, I saw that the writing was clearly legible. Not understanding anything, I went to bed. Two months exactly had gone by since John Paul II's departure to the House of the Father. I woke up at 4:30 a.m., surprised that I was able to sleep, and I leapt out of bed: my body was no longer insensitive, rigid, and interiorly I was not the same.

Then, I felt an interior call and the strong impulse to go to pray before the Most Blessed Sacrament. I went down to the Oratory and prayed before the Most Blessed Sacrament. I felt a profound peace and a sensation of wellbeing; too great an experience, a mystery difficult to explain with words. Later, before the Most Blessed Sacrament, I meditated on John Paul II's Mysteries of Light. At 6 o'clock in the morning, I went out to meet with the sisters in the chapel for a time of prayer, which was followed by the Eucharistic celebration.

I had to walk some 50 meters, and at that very moment I realized that, as I walked, my left arm was moving, it was not immobile next to my body. I also felt a physical lightness and agility that I had not felt for a long time.

During the Eucharistic celebration, I was full of joy and peace; it was June 3rd, the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Coming out from Holy Mass, I was sure of my cure; my hand did not shake any more. I went to write again, and at midday I stopped taking my medicines.

On June 7, as planned, I went to my neurologist, my doctor for the past four years. He was also surprised to see the disappearance of all the symptoms of the disease, despite my having interrupted the treatment five days earlier.

A year-long investigation into Sister Marie Simon-Pierre's recovery employed the expertise of three neurologists - two of whom were professors - to examine the medical records, blood test results and X-rays of Sister Marie Simon-Pierre. Their conclusion was that her recovery was inexplicable.

When Sister Marie Simon-Pierre was asked whether she believed her recovery from an irreversible disease was a miracle, she replied: I was ill, and now I am cured. The rest is for the Church to decide.

Floribeth Mora Diaz

People can think what they want, what I know is that I'm healthy.

Floribeth Mora Diaz, a lawyer from Costa Rica, developed a brain aneurysm, which was diagnosed as inoperable in April 2011; her doctors predicted she had only a month to live.

An aneurysm is a bulge in a blood vessel caused by a weakness in the blood vessel wall. As blood passes through the weakened blood vessel, the blood pressure causes a small area to bulge outwards like a balloon. If a brain aneurysms bursts, the bleeding can cause extensive brain damage. About 3 in 5 people who's brain aneurysm bursts die within 2 weeks, and half of those who survive are left with severe brain damage and disability.

As Floribeth's type of aneurysm was relatively rare, her doctor held various clinical sessions and presented the case at a Latin American symposium. The majority recommended a course of action to stabilise her, to reduce the risk of a fatal bleed, rather than operating to try and repair the aneurysm.

Partially paralysed, Floribeth was on pain medication and lying in bed at home on May 1^st, 2011, clutching a magazine with a front cover photograph of the, now beatified, former pope, John Paul II, when he appeared before her in a vision.

Floribeth, get up, what are you doing here? Why don't you go into the kitchen and see your husband? the vision said to her.

The late Pope's hands seemed to reach out towards her from the cover of the magazine, Floribeth recalled.

She went on to say, And I responded, "now I feel fine, I'm going, I'm going"

Floribeth insisted that from that day on, she was completely cured. I felt a great sense of wellness inside me. Acknowledging that many people would be highly sceptical of her recovery, and of the whole concept of miracles, she said that people can think what they want, what I know is that I'm healthy. There are always people who don't believe me, who say I'm crazy, but what counts for me today is that this "crazy woman" is cured.

Floribeth's neurosurgeon was interviewed by a journalist from The Telegraph:

Could her treatment not have been the cause of her recuperation?

Well, that an aneurysm of this size... is not something that is easily explicable from a medical point of view. That's why it's curious that, suddenly, after a matter of months, the study which we performed on her showed a normal magnetic resonance. [no trace of the aneurysm]

Did you consult with other neurosurgeons?

We are accustomed to hold clinical sessions. Furthermore, she was an in-patient in the hospital, so every day she was visited by a different neurosurgeon.

Do you think that it is possible that a miracle happened to this patient?

Of course. As I have stated previously [when I said, "If I cannot explain it from a medical standpoint, something non-medical happened...I can believe it was a miracle"], I am a Catholic and as a doctor with many years of experience, I do believe that miracles can exist. Every day we see miracles in our daily lives - and not just in medicine, but for all people in general. And thanks to God, it is for the good of mankind. So, yes, I do believe in miracles.

Could your religion have clouded your judgment when it comes to determining whether there was a rational explanation?

Well, we have to remember that the arteriography [imaging of the blood vessels] was seen by various people within this hospital, and also shared at a symposium in Mexico. The images are stored here. Any person who needs to see the studies; they are here. They are kept here with a total impartiality. And the MRI scan where you do not see the aneurysm was reported by our radiologist. It wasn't me, but another doctor who is a neuroradiologist and is specialised in this. So the diagnosis that there was no residual matter, came from there.

Divine Intervention?

These are only two stories, but there are countless more. It is reports of miracles such as these, confirmed by experts after the highest standards of scientific investigation, that, although it may seem unlikely, force me to believe that the Divine intervenes in Nature, even today.

Eucharistic miracles

There is also a miracle that happens every week, all over the world: the Catholic church teaches that at every mass, the Eucharist - the bread and wine - literally becomes the body and blood of Jesus.

This teaching is known as transubstantiation, and it's a teaching that, honestly, I'd struggled with.

The Origin of Transubstantiation

The first transubstantiation was performed by Jesus at the Jewish feast of Passover, the feast remembering God's liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. That meal is commonly known as the Last Supper.

The First Passover

1200 years before Jesus was born, before Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, the Israelites were still slaves in Egypt. It took ten plagues to overcome the Pharoah's stubbornness and convince him to release the Israelites; the tenth plague being the death of every first-born male of the Egyptian people. Before the final plague struck, God ordered Moses to tell every Jewish family that on the tenth day of that month, each family must take a lamb or goat, one year old male and without blemish, and if the family is too small to eat the entire animal, then they must join with their neighbours. They must take care of the animal until the fourteenth of the month, when at twilight, the entire community of Israel must slaughter their animal. Some of the blood of the animal was to be brushed onto the sides and tops of the door frames of the houses where they were to eat the animal. On that night, they were to eat the meal of lamb or goat, bitter herbs and bread made without yeast, say prayers and be ready for a journey. On that same night, God passed through Egypt and struck down all the first-born males of the Egyptian people, from prisoner to Pharaoh, and all the first-born males of their livestock, only sparing those in the houses which had the blood of the lambs on their door frames.

For the Israelites to follow this command would normally have been incredibly dangerous - practically suicidal. The Egyptians considered rams to be the earthly manifestations of gods; rams were worshipped in their physical, animal form, not only as temple statues. Normally, if an Israelite were to kill a ram, they could expect to be stoned to death. By not only slaughtering and eating rams, but by painting their doors with its blood, the Israelites were showing ultimate defiance to their Egyptian overlords and incredible faith in God. Their faith was rewarded by being saved from slavery and oppression in Egypt.

Each year, the Jews celebrate a feast-day in remembrance of this event: "The Passover" (literally, the "passing over" of the forces of destruction and the sparing of the first-born of the Israelites).

In sparing and liberating the Israelites, God was keeping his promise, made in the covenant with Abraham over 600 years before Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, to give the promised land to the Israelites and to make them a great nation. Abraham was the grandfather of Jacob, who became known as Israel, and after whom the Israelites are named and from whom the Israelites are descended.

The First Covenant

The words covenant and testament are interchangeable, so the Old Testament books pertain to the first covenant between God and the Israelites, and the New Testament books are written in the belief that Jesus both completed and replaced the Old Covenant (Old Testament) with the New Covenant.

The first covenant, or agreement, was made between God and Abraham. In Genesis 15, Abraham is reported to have had a vision of God, in which God promised Abraham that he would have as many descendants as there are stars in the sky, that he and his descendents would possess the land from Egypt's river to the great Euphrates, together with the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites - the Promised Land, known today as Israel - and that through his descendants, God would mediate blessing to all the people of the earth. When Abraham questioned God as to how he could be sure he would possess the land, God instructed Abraham to bring a three-year-old female calf, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a dove, and a young pigeon, and to split calf, goat and ram in half and lay the halves facing each other. When the sun set, Abraham fell into a deep sleep, during which Abraham saw a smoking vessel with a fiery flame pass between the split-open animals.

At the time when the First Covenant with God was struck, the common practice when making a covenant, which was literally referred to as "cutting" a covenant, was to cut an animal in two and have the parties making the covenant walk between the two halves of the animal, as a symbol of what should happen to the parties should either break the agreement. Cutting a covenant was the most solemn agreement possible, and walking between the cut animals was a sign of how serious the parties took the agreement. At the covenant between God and Abraham, in Abraham's dream, only God (symbolised by the flame) passed between the animals.

The First Covenant Renewed

About 600 years later, the newly freed descendants of Abraham, the Israelites, who had spent 430 years in Egypt and who now numbered over 600,000, led by Moses, reached Mount Horeb. Mount Horeb is the same mountain where Moses first encountered God at the burning bush, where he received his orders from God to free the Israelites from Egyptian slavery. Moses went back up the mountain, to the holy site of the burning bush, to pray to God for his people. At this time, through Moses as mediator, God renewed his covenant with the Israelites, that was first made with Abraham. In the renewing of the covenant with Moses, God gave Moses the well-known ten commandments plus over 600 other laws covering every aspect of human behavior, such as males having to be circumcised, sabbaths having to be observed and people having to obey hundreds of dietary, social, and hygiene rules - known as the Torah. All these regulations, whilst sensible for the survival of a nation who were to wander in the desert for the next forty years, were also intended to set apart the Israelites from their neighbours' pagan influences, thus preventing them straying from God's laws. Through obeying God and living their lives according to God's laws, the Israelites were to show the world that God was the one and only all-powerful God, whom all people should follow and worship.

According to God's instructions to Moses, the Ten Commandments were inscribed onto stone, known also as the Tablets of the Covenant, and housed in the Ark of the Covenant: a box (111 x 67 x 67 cm) made of acacia wood, overlaid inside and out with gold, with an artistic border. Its cover, made of solid gold, featured two golden cherubs, one at each end, which faced each other with their faces toward the cover and their wings extending upward, overshadowing the cover.

The Ark was initially kept in the Most Holy compartment of the tabernacle - a transportable tent of worship that was made at the same time as the Ark. The Most Holy was screened off from the view of the priests and the people by a curtain. Only the high priest could enter this compartment, and only on one day each year, to see the Ark.

From the twelve tribes of the Israelites (descended from the twelve sons of Israel), one tribe, the Levites (from the tribe of Levi), was dedicated to the service of God. The Levites were responsible for the care and transporting of the tabernacle. From the Levites, only Aaron (Moses' elder brother) and his descendants could be priests. It was their responsibility to intercede with God and offer sacrifices to God on behalf of the Israelites.

The only day of the year on which the high priest could enter the Most Holy part of the tabernacle was the festival of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. At Yom Kippur, one goat or lamb was made a symbol of the sins of the Israelites being removed: the high priest would lay his hands on the head of the goat, confess the sins of the Israelites, putting them on the head of the goat, and send it away into the wilderness.

The second goat or lamb was sacrificed by the priest in atonement for the sins of the Israelites. The sacrifice was not required for vengeance, but because sin is so serious, and sin inevitably leads to death, only life can atone for sin. The sacrifices of Yom Kippur were required to be repeated every year.

The New Covenant

At the Last Supper, the Passover commemoration the night before Jesus was crucified, the history of the first Passover was recalled when Jesus and his Apostles said the prayers and ate the Passover meal.

It was during this commemoration of the first covenant that Jesus replaced the old covenant with the new covenant. The covenant between God and his chosen people was no longer just with the Israelites, but the new covenant was made with all people who believed in Jesus and accepted him as the way to eternal life. In the new covenant, we still have the free choice to love God, or not, but we are promised that any person who truly loves God by obeying his commandments, loving their neighbour, and believing in Jesus will be admitted to be with God in heaven, at the resurrection. As the Israelites were spared the death of their first-born in Egypt, through their faith in God (by brushing the blood of the sacrificed passover lamb onto their door frames), so too is anyone who believes in Jesus spared eternal death.

The Last Supper

At the time of Jesus, there were two regulations that had to be followed for the Passover meal: before the lamb was to be eaten, several hours of fasting were required, beginning around 3 PM, and four cups of wine must be drunk throughout the meal. The Passover meal followed a prescribed order, which revolved around the drinking of the four cups of wine.

The Cup of Sanctification (the kiddish cup)

The first cup was the introductory rites to the Passover meal. The Passover meal begins in the evening, sometime around nightfall. The father gathers with his family at a large table and reclines to celebrate the freedom won by God in Egypt. The first cup is mixed with water and wine. After the mixing occurred, the father begins with the formal blessing over the cup, before drinking from the cup. The food is then brought out, which includes unleavened bread, bitter herbs, a bowl of sauce, and the roasted lamb, which is known as “the body” in traditional Jewish sources. Appetizers were also brought out, however, the actual meal had not yet started.

The Cup of Proclamation (the haggadah cup)

The second cup would be mixed, but not drunk. The father would proclaim what the Lord did for Israel in Egypt. The son then asks the question, father, why is this night different from other nights? The person administering the meal or priest would read from Exodus in the Torah. This was a very special way to remember the exodus so that future generations would never forget how God saved the Israelites from slavery. After they read from Exodus, they would sing the Little Hallel (Hallel means "praise"), Psalms 113 and 114. After the song of praise, they would drink from the second cup of wine, and this would finish the second part of the Passover meal.

The Cup of Blessing (the berakah cup)

The third cup would be mixed and this is where the supper officially begins. The family would finally eat the lamb and the unleavened bread. The lamb represented the lamb of the first passover, sacrificed in Egypt. They also ate bitter herbs and spices, to remind them of the bitterness of their slavery. They also ate green herbs dipped in salt water, which would have tasted bad, but reminded them of the tears that the Israelites shed in their 430 years of slavery. They would also eat something called haroseth, which was apple that was mashed up and cooked with wine and a little bit of cinnamon and nutmeg. It represented the mortar used in the bricks to build Egypt. And they also ate unleavened bread called matzah, just as they ate on that first night in Egypt. They ate many symbolic foods and when the meal was done, they would drink from the third cup of wine.

It is during the meal, before the third cup is drunk, that Jesus begins to institute the New Covenant. In Matthew 26:26, Matthew records, While they were eating, Jesus took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and giving it to his disciples said, "Take and eat; this is my body." Then he took a cup, and after offering thanks he gave it to them, saying, "Drink from this, all of you. For this is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins. And I tell you, from now on I shall not drink this fruit of the vine until the day when I shall drink it anew with you in the kingdom of my Father."

The Cup of Praise (the hallel cup)

Psalms 115-118, known as the Great Hallel, were sung. The Psalms were a "script" for the one offering the sacrifice of thanksgiving (Psalm 116). Once Psalm 118 was sung, the fourth cup was drunk. At this point, the meal was finished. However, in Matthew 26:30, we learn that Jesus and his disciples did not drink the fourth cup, but they went to the Garden of Gethsemene. At this point, the sacrificial meal was still ongoing.

The Fourth Cup of the Last Supper

It is the fourth cup that Jesus prays about in Gethsemene, where Jesus prays with great sorrow and distress for the fourth cup to pass him by, when he prayed "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me". Jesus knew he was about to endure the unendurable, but he still finished his prayer, "yet not my will be done, but yours".

Later, when Jesus is crucified, before his death, it is recorded that From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. About three in the afternoon, Jesus cried out, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" This wasn't Jesus feeling utterly abandoned (as I had once thought), but it was Jesus referencing psalm 22. The psalms were first numbered in AD 1509, so, to refer to a psalm in Jesus' time, one would recite the first line. Psalm 22 was written by King David when he felt utterly beset by his enemies and abandoned by God, yet it also clearly prophetic, and was recognised as being a foretelling of the future Messiah's rejection, torment and death - it describes the death of Jesus on the cross with amazing precision. The psalm foretells how God had to separate from the Messiah, so that as the Messiah died, he could take on the price of the sins of Israel and all humanity, and it tells of how continued faith in God, results in salvation for the psalmist, but also everlasting victory and glory to God.

Immediately after referencing the psalm, Jesus said, "I am thirsty." A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus' lips. When he had received the drink, Jesus said, "It is finished." With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. Jesus drank the fourth cup and closed the passover meal. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. This was the curtain that separated the Holy of Holies in the temple, from everyone except the high priest on the day of Yom Kippur.

Jesus is the Sacrificial Lamb of the New Covenant

Although blameless, Jesus paid the price for the transgressions of the Israelites since the covanent with Abraham - Abraham didn't pass between the split animals at the cutting of the covenant, only God did, symbolising God would pay the price for transgressions of the covenant, i.e. the Israelites breaking the Ten Commandments. At the same time, Jesus' sacrifice sealed the new covenant between God and all people, forever.

Palm Sunday, the day when Jesus triumphantly entered Jerusalem with a huge crowd cheering him through the streets, as they believed Jesus was the Messiah who would save Israel from occupation and oppression, and so they wanted to make him king, was the 10th day of the month. The 10th day was also the day when the Passover lambs were brought into the city, Jerusalem, for inspection. As a rule, the lambs for the Passover meal were killed on the eve of Passover. In Jesus' time, some Jews celebrated Passover a day early, a practice which stopped a few decades later, and no-one knows why this was the case. However, Jesus celebrated this earlier Passover, and was crucified (sacrificed) on the same evening as the sacrifical lambs for the Passover. Furthermore, the high priest would confirm the lambs as unblemished, thus sealing their fate to be sacrificed, around noon. Similarly, Jesus was condemned to death at noon. The lambs were to be sacrificed at twighlight, 3 o'clock, which was also the same time that Jesus died on the cross. As the lambs were being sacrificed to celebrate the memorial of the Old Covenant, Jesus was dying to institute the New Convenant.

Unlike the sacrifices for the old covenant on Yom Kippur, that had to be repeated, the sacrifice of Jesus paid the price for all transgressions, past and future, and as such had no need to be repeated. Under the old covenant, only the high priest could intercede with God on behalf of the people, but now, the new and eternal high priest, Jesus, being God, gives all people direct access to God. God was no longer separated from everyone by the curtain that screened the Holy of Holies, which only the high priest was allowed to pass through on Yom Kippur - symbolised by the curtain miraculously tearing when Jesus died.

It was because Jesus wanted all people to have living proof of God's love for them that he left a perpetual memorial of his death and resurrection. Jesus replaced the memorial of the old covenant - the temple sacrifices - with the memorial of the new covenant - the Eucharist. Jesus gifted his apostles the power to perform the remembrance of his sacrifice for the new covenant, a power which they conferred on their disciples, and so on and so forth the power has been passed down to today's bishops - the successors of the apostles - who confer it on today's priests.

Before his crucifixion, Jesus also said, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. My flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.. Not only was this a seemingly appalling statement for the obvious fact that Jesus was a person, but the Jewish people were forbidden from drinking the blood of animals, as it is the blood which carries the life of the animal. Under the law given to Moses, anyone who drinks the blood of an animal would be cut off from Israel. Even for those that gave up their former lives, followed Jesus and witnessed the miracles he performed, when Jesus said this, many of them deserted him.

Nevertheless, it was the teaching of the apostles, and as such the Church, that Jesus gave his Church the power to change bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus - although the bread and wine retain their original appearances - so that each day the sacrifice Jesus made when he was crucified could be renewed, as a living memorial uniting us with Jesus, who is now in heaven.

It is this teaching, the changing of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus - or transubstantiation - that, despite being a Catholic, I had struggled to take at face value. I asked myself yeah, but is it really though? and even though we are to remember Jesus' sacrifice, does transubstantiation actually occur, or is it really just symbolic?

As always, when I questioned something - or when my non-Catholic friends questioned me in the pub (sometimes less tactfully than others, depending on how late in the evening it was) - I read about it.

The Philosophical Explanation

The philosophical differentiation of a something's accidents and its substance was once more commonly known than it is today. As such, transubstantiation was less of a hurdle than it can be to us. The author Frank J. Sheed explains this so well in his book Theology for Beginners, that there was little point in me trying to summarise it, so I've recopied his explanation here.

At this stage, we must be content with only the simplest statement of the meaning of, and distinction between substance and accidents, without which we should make nothing at all of transubstantiation. We shall concentrate upon bread, reminding ourselves once again that what is said applies in principle to wine as well.

We look at the bread the priest uses in the Sacrament. It is white, round, soft. The whiteness is not the bread, it is simply a quality that the bread has; the same is true of the roundness and the softness. There is something there that has these and other properties, qualities, attributes - the philosophers call all of them accidents. Whiteness and roundness we see; softness brings in the sense of touch. We might smell bread, and the smell of new bread is wonderful, but once again the smell is not the bread, but simply a property. The something which has the whiteness, the softness, the roundness, has the smell; and if we try another sense, the sense of taste, the same something has that special effect upon our palate.

In other words, whatever the senses perceive - even with the aid of those instruments we are forever inventing to increase the reach of the senses - is always of this same sort, a quality, a property, an attribute; no sense perceives the something which has all these qualities, which is the thing itself. This something is what the philosophers call substance; the rest are accidents which it possesses. Our senses perceive accidents; only the mind knows the substance. This is true of bread, it is true of every created thing. Left to itself, the mind assumes that the substance is that which, in all its past experience, has been found to have that particular group of accidents. But in these two instances, the bread and wine of the Eucharist, the mind is not left to itself. By the revelation of Christ it knows that the substance has been changed, in the one case into the substance of his body, in the other into the substance of his blood.

The senses can no more perceive the new substance resulting from the consecration than they could have perceived the substance there before. We cannot repeat too often that senses can perceive only accidents, and consecration changes only the substance. The accidents remain in their totality - for example, that which was wine and is now Christ's blood still has the smell of wine, the intoxicating power of wine. One is occasionally startled to find some scientist claiming to have put all the resources of his laboratory into testing the consecrated bread; he announces triumphantly that there is no change whatever, no difference between this and any other bread. We could have told him that, without the aid of any instrument. For all that instruments can do is to make contact with the accidents, and it is part of the doctrine of transubstantiation that the accidents undergo no change whatever. If our scientist had announced that he had found a change, that would be really startling and upsetting.

The accidents, then, remain; but not, of course, as accidents of Christ's body. It is not his body which has the whiteness and the roundness and the softness. The accidents once held in existence by the substance of bread, and those others once held in existence by the substance of wine, are now held in existence solely by God's will to maintain them.

What of Christ's body, now sacramentally present? All we shall say here is that his body is wholly present, though not (so St. Thomas among others tells us) extended in space. One further element in the doctrine of the Real Presence needs to be stated: Christ's body remains in the communicant as long as the accidents remain themselves. Where, in the normal action of our bodily processes, they are so changed as to be no longer accidents of bread or accidents of wine, the Real Presence in us of Christ's own individual body ceases. But we live on in his Mystical Body.

The End of My Research?

Although the theory of accidents and substance means transubstantiation can be explained logically and so I could see that in this context it is possible for the Eucharist to have the appearance of bread and wine, but at the same time be the body and blood of Jesus, the question still nagged: yeah, but is it really though?

Considering that I believe in the miracles of the bible, for reasons I've already stated, and in approved miracles throughout history and in modern times, maybe I should be somewhat ashamed that I didn't take the miracle of the Eucharist on faith, especially as it was instigated by Jesus at the Last Supper.

But, for whatever reason I wasn't satisfied, so I kept on reading.

The Eucharistic Miracle of Scete, Egypt (c. 4^th Century)

It turns out I'm not the only one who wondered whether the Eucharist really was the body and blood of Jesus. Around the 4^th century AD, in a monastery in the Scetis Valley, Egypt, a monk who was otherwise devout said the bread which we receive is not really the body of Christ, but a symbol.

Two of the older monks heard he had said this. The older monks knew the doubting monk led an otherwise exemplary life, so they knew he had not said this thing contrary to the faith out of malice, but out of naivety, and so the older monks went to him and said Father, we have heard a proposition contrary to the faith on the part of someone who says that the bread which we receive is not really the body of Christ, but a symbol, to which he responded It is I who have said that. The older monks replied, Do not hold this position, Father, but hold one in conformity with that which the catholic Church has given us. We believe, for our part, that the bread itself is the body of Christ and that the cup itself is his blood and this in all truth and not a symbol. But as in the beginning, God formed man in his image...without anyone being able to say that it is not the image of God, even though it is not seen to be so; thus it is with the bread of which he said that it is his body; and so we believe that it is really the body of Christ. However, the doubting monk remained sceptical and replied As long as I have not been persuaded by the thing itself, I shall not be fully convinced.

The older monks did not become frustrated, but showed great faith when they said to him, Let us pray to God about this mystery throughout the whole of this week and we believe that God will reveal it to us. Eager to be truly faithful, the doubting monk prayed, Lord, you know that it is not through malice that I do not believe and so that I may not err through ignorance, reveal this mystery to me, Lord Jesus Christ. The old monks returned to their cells and prayed similarly, Lord Jesus Christ, reveal this mystery to the old man, that he may believe and not lose his reward.

At the end of the week, the next Sunday all three went to church. At the consecration of the Eucharist - the prayer which enacts the transubstantiation - the three monks' eyes were opened and when the celebrating priest placed the bread on the altar, the three monks saw a little child in its place. When the priest put out his hand to break the bread, these three saw an angel descend from heaven with a sword, pierce the boy and pour out the child's blood into the chalice. When the priest cut the bread into small pieces, so too the angel cut the child into pieces. When it came time to receive the Eucharist, the doubting monk received a morsel of bloody flesh. Understandably terrified, he cried out Lord, I believe that this bread is your flesh and this chalice your blood. As soon as he had done so, the flesh which he held in his hand took the appearance of bread, and giving thanks to God, he received it.

Then the old men said to him, God knows human nature and that man cannot eat raw flesh and that is why he has changed his body into bread and his blood into wine, for those who receive it in faith. Then they gave thanks to God for the converted monk, because he had allowed him not to lose the reward of his life's labour, and all three returned with joy to their own cells.

The End of My Research?

It's reassuring to know that even holy people have shared the same doubts as me, but does this story of his conversion satisfy my questioning? Not quite.

We can rule out hallucination or mental imbalance, because the three monks saw exactly the same thing. However, the story was passed down from one monk to another before being written down and, as there's only one source for the story, we can't rule out embellishment, even if it is with pious intentions.

The Eucharistic Miracle of Lanciano, Italy (8^th Century)

Similarly to the miracle of Scete, the miracle in Lanciano was brought about for a doubting monk. An anonymous author from the 1600s narrates the miracle for us:

In this city of Lanciano, around the year 700 of our Lord there was, in the monastery of St. Legontian which was under the custody of the monks of St. Basil (today the monastery is renamed St. Francis') a monk who, although learned in the sciences of the world, was ignorant in those of God, and therefore not strong in his faith. He was plagued by a doubt as to whether the consecrated Host was truly the Body of Christ, and the consecrated wine truly his Blood.

However, he constantly prayed that God would take this wound from his heart, and divine grace did not abandon him, because the all-mighty God, Father of mercy and consolation, was pleased to raise him up from the depths of his darkness and to grant him that same grace that he had shown to the Apostle St. Thomas.

One morning, as he was celebrating Mass, after he had already said the most holy words of consecration, his doubts and errors weighed upon him more heavily than ever. By a most singular and marvellous favour then, he saw the bread changed into Flesh and the wine into Blood.

He was so confused and terrified by such a Stupendous Miracle that he stood utterly dumbfounded as if by ecstasy for a long period; but eventually, his fear gave way to the spiritual happiness that filled his soul, and he turned his joyful yet tearful face to those around him and cried out: "O fortunate friends to whom the Blessed Lord has deigned to reveal himself in this Most Holy Sacrament and to make himself visible before your eyes and to dispel my own unbelief. Come, brothers, and gaze at our God drawn near us. Behold the Flesh and Blood of our most beloved Christ."

At these words, all people hurried avidly to the altar with deep devotion, and there upon witnessing the Miracle, they began to cry out with tears for divine mercy.

As the news of such a rare and peculiar Miracle spread through the city, who could describe the acts of piety that the great and the small performed as they hurried to see the Wonder with their own eyes: some cried out with devout voice for divine mercy; some beat their breasts and confessed their guilt and sins; others with subdued voices and sighs admitted their unworthiness to gaze upon such a precious treasure; and others still, in a state of rapture and reverent silence admired, marvelled, praised, and thanked the all-good God who deigned to place before our mortal senses his immortal and incomprehensible Majesty

The reported miracle increased the faith of the town and greatly bolstered the faith of the monk. But that's not where this story ends. The story picks up again about 1200 years later.

November 1970

Since 1713, the flesh and blood from the miracle of Lanciano have been kept in a monstrance, donated by Domenico Coli. The host, visible as flesh, is displayed in the top between two sheets of glass; it can be seen that is has been mummified over the centuries, due to loss of water, to the point where the middle of the flesh became thinner and ripped as it retracted towards the periphery, but it still follows the same circular outline you would expect to see of a host. The wine, visible as blood in the chalice at the bottom, also underwent mummification and became coagulated to the point of being hard as stone.

In 1970, the Archbishop of Lanciano, with Rome's approval, requested Dr. Odoardo Linoli, head physician at Spedali Riuniti Hospital in Arezzo and university lecturer in Anatomy, Pathologic Histology, Chemistry and Clinical Microscopy, to perform a thorough scientific examination on the relics of the miracle, which had occurred twelve centuries earlier. On March 4, 1971, the professor presented a detailed report of the various studies carried out. The summary of the findings are presented in this exhibition poster - incidentally, these were the articles that first introduced me to the miracle at Lanciano.

Personally, I've read a lot on the internet that claims to be by such and such an eminent person, but then I can find no trace of that person, let alone their work, or it turns out that the findings of the expert have been greatly exaggerated for the benefit of the article. These claims are often repeated by other articles, so there ends up being a wealth of repeated information all based on very shaky foundations. For this reason, before I took the reported findings of Dr. Linoli's research for granted, I tried to find the original.

It turns out, Dr. Linoli does exist - which is a good start - his credentials of 1971 are accurate and he has published many articles in relation to his field of expertise. After a bit of digging on the internet I managed to find the title of the report we're interested in, which is "Histological, immunological and biochemical studies on the flesh and blood of the eucharistic miracle of Lanciano (8th century)". It was published in the journal "The Sclavo Notebooks in Clinical and Laboratory Diagnostics, Volume 7", which has a journal ISSN of 0033-4979 and the PubMed unique identification number for the article is 4950729. So far, so legitimate! Unfortunately, I hadn't been able to find any more than a title for his work online, as it was published in 1971, well before the internet. However, after a lot more digging (and an e-mail to Sclavo Diagnostics which went unanswered), I got lucky and managed to find a scan of the published article from the journal, which I've uploaded here, if you're interested (and can read Italian).

For those that can't read Italian, the findings of his report are summarised below.

• The histological study (the study of the tissues of animals and plants using microscopy) of the flesh of Lanciano confirmed it to be of myocardial origin, that is to say heart muscle.
• The haematological study (the study of blood) confirmed that the blood of Lanciano was indeed blood.
• Species identification testing showed that the flesh and blood samples are human.
• The blood type of both the flesh and blood was found to be of the AB blood group.
• The protein content of the blood was found to be within the normal ranges for human blood.

More detail of the investigation can be found in the book recording the miracle, "The Eucharistic Miracle of Lanciano: Historical, Theological, Scientific and Photographic Documentation", by Fr. Nicola Nasuti and in his report of the miracle.

The End of My Research?

We know the story and we now know we have human flesh and blood where the Eucharist was. If we take nothing on trust, we must ask the question, could it have been sleight of hand on the part of the priest to encourage devotion to Christianity?

We know the blood type is AB, which only 4% of the population have. Given that it wasn't known until 1900 that blood has a type, if the visible appearance of flesh and blood were a hoax, the perpetrator got very lucky with a 1 in 25 shot - I don't know about you, but whenever I've been a casino, 1 in 25 doesn't tend to work for me first time (nor does it seem to work the next 24 times). Furthermore, the blood type found in all other Eucharistic miracles has also been found to be AB. We also know the flesh and blood of Lanciano are not a modern sample, taken after the discovery of blood types, as they have been mummified over centuries and Dr. Linoli's tests confirmed no artificial mummification took place.

Coupled with the fact that it would take careful skill by a trained professional in anatomic dissections to produce an even an continuous slice of myocardial muscle, similar to that of Lanciano, and the first anatomic dissections on the human body weren't made until after the 14th century (700 years later) it seems even more unlikely to have been a hoax, particularly when you consider that, theologically speaking, there was no need for the Eucharistic miracle to be manifest as heart muscle, when the doctrine of transubstantiation simply specifies body. So far, all the Eucharistic miracles I've read about involve heart muscle, specifically the myocardium, which is the muscle responsible for the beating of the heart, and as such the life of the body.

Nevertheless, I kept on reading.

The Eucharistic Miracle of Buenos Aires, Argentina (1996)

On August 18^th 1996, Fr. Alejandro Pezet was distributing communion at a Catholic church in the commercial center of Buenos Aires. As he was finishing, a female parishioner told him she'd found a discarded host in a candle holder at the back of the church. As the host was no longer fit for consumption, Fr. Alejandro placed it in a bowl of water and locked it in the tabernacle, so the host may dissolve and the solution be used to water a plant, according to prescribed practice for a consecrated host that cannot be consumed.

Eight days later, when the Fr. Pezet opened the tabernacle, he was amazed to see the host had not dissolved but that a blood-like substance had begun to emerge from the host. He informed the local bishop, Jorge Bergoglio (now Pope Francis), who gave instructions that the host be professionally photographed.

The photographs were take on the 6^th September that year. By that point, the transformation had continued such that the bloody-looking substance had grown to the extent that the host was no longer visible, but what remained was the bloody-looking substance suspended in water.

For three years, the transformed host sat locked in the tabernacle, in secret so as not to encourage excitement about something which might turn out to have a natural and mundane cause - such as a host in Utah which began to exude a red substance which, after investigation, was found to be mould. As the Argentinian host had not decomposed in the three years, then Archbishop Bergoglio decided that it should be properly analyzed.

Dr. Ricardo Castañón Gómez, an atheist doctor, was asked to lead the scientific analysis on the host in question. On October 5^th, Dr. Castañón took two samples of the host. The sample not held in water became like a dry scab and the other, which was held in water, remained like gelatin.

Dr. Castañón took the samples to a laboratory in Berkeley, California. He didn't tell the laboratorian the sample came from a host, but rather asked for the analysis as a blind test.

The results of the tests are recalled by Dr. Castañón, when the laboratorian tells him, Dr. the sample you have brought us is muscle from the heart...muscle from the myocardium of the left ventricle

Since 1999, Dr. Castañón's team had been working on the study of the host, when in 2004 they found a renowned expert who was ideal to help further their investigation, Dr. Frederick Zugibe.

His credentials are so impressive, and apt, that I think they deserve their own paragraph. Dr. Zugibe held a Bachelor of Science, Master of Science in Anatomy and Electron Microscopy, a PhD in Anatomy and Histochemistry, and an M.D. degree. He was a diplomate of the American Board of Pathology in anatomic pathology and forensic pathology, and a diplomate of the American Board of Family Practice. Zugibe was an adjunct Associate Professor of Pathology at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and is a Fellow of the College of American Pathologists, a Fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, Forensic Pathology Section, and a member of the National Association of Medical Examiners. He was formerly the Director of Cardiovascular Research with the Veteran's Hospital in Pittsburgh, and was a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology, Fellow of the Council on Arteriosclerosis of the American Heart Association, Fellow of the New York Cardiological Society, and Member of the International Atherosclerosis Society. Understandably, he was one of the most prominent experts in forensic medicine in the USA, and he was the chief medical examiner of Rockland County, New York from 1969 to 2002. By his retirement he estimated his office had done 10,000 autopsies during his tenure. And if all that wasn't enough, he is the only professor who had written a book on how to determine the cause of someone's death when the heart has been wounded.

Dr. Zugibe's analysis of the samples was the analysed material is a fragment of the heart muscle found in the wall of the left ventricle close to the valves. This muscle is responsible for the contraction of the heart. It should be borne in mind that the left cardiac ventricle pumps blood to all parts of the body. The heart muscle is in an inflammatory condition and contains a large number of white blood cells. This indicates that the heart was alive at the time the sample was taken. It is my contention that the heart was alive, since white blood cells die outside a living organism. They require a living organism to sustain them. Thus, their presence indicates that the heart was alive when the sample was taken. What is more, these white blood cells had penetrated the tissue, which further indicates that the heart had been under severe stress, as if the owner had been beaten severely about the chest.

Dr. Zugibe then went on to ask, But there is something you need to explain: how is it possible that while I was studying this sample, the sample was moving, it was beating? So, you explain to me, how did you take the heart of a dead man and make it look alive to me in my New York lab?

To which Dr. Castañón replied, Professor Zugibe, this is not what you think, this is a consecrated host that started bleeding, which, to put it very mildly, came as quite a shock to Dr. Zugibe. After his analysis and independent conclusion, for Dr. Zugibe to learn that the sample came from a host that turned into heart tissue, was (for want of a much better word) astonishing.

As to Dr. Zugibe's question of how the sample was made to look alive - a sample which Dr. Castañón had been studying since 1999 and it was 2004 at this point in the story - Dr. Castañón retrieved the notes from the first study in Buenos Aires, where he found the laboratory technician had written Some liquids are observed like red blood cells, white blood cells, haemoglobin, but what calls my attention is that the cells are moving and beating.

The End of My Research?

One might suggest that is was all an elaborate ruse by Dr. Castañón, as he appears to be the common denominator for all the tests, but Dr. Castañón was chosen to lead the study because he was a doctor and because he was an atheist - although since the investigation, he is no longer an atheist. Also, I haven't described all the members of the investigative team; Dr. Castañón was joined by lawyer Ron Tesoriero, journalist Mike Willesee and others. Ron Tesoriero has documented the study in more detail than I have, in his book, Reason to Believe.

Incidentally, as part of my research, I found that Ron Tesoriero has a website that gives an overview of the miracle. On his website he claims the miracle disproves evolution because Darwinian Theory maintains that all life forms on earth today are a product of an evolutionary process over billions of years. There cannot be one exception otherwise the theory collapses. I only mention it here in case you decide to research this miracle more and come across his website. His is a controversial conclusion, at which one is not forced to arrive on the basis of the evidence, and one I disagree with. I disagree with his conclusion, quite easily, on the basis that a miracle is outside the normal laws of nature. The spontaneous DNA of the Eucharistic miracle, and for that matter the spontaneous DNA of the conception of Jesus, are miracles and as such outside the normal laws - a miracle is not just a remote possibility occurring, it's the direct involvement of God in nature.

Whilst everyone must make their own conclusion, for me, I find this approved modern miracle, tested by world-renowned experts, a great comfort to my faith. As C.S. Lewis once said, When we are lost in the woods the sight of a signpost is a great matter. He who first sees it cries 'Look!' The whole party gathers round and stares. But when we have found the road and are passing signposts every few miles, we shall not stop and stare. They will encourage us and we shall be grateful to the authority that set them up. But we shall not stop and stare, or not much; not on this road, though their pillars are of silver and their lettering of gold.

I am hugely thankful to the Authority that set up this signpost, particularly as it is a modern event, one that could not have been lost in translation over the years, one that cannot be accused of embellishment because the first-hand independent sources are alive today, but mostly because it shows me that our Authority is still interested in us who are walking in the woods.

There's Plenty More Examples

There are a many, many more Eucharistic miracles that have been recorded throughout the world and throughout the ages. Two more, that I've found, are of particular note thanks to their occurring in modern times and having been studied to show the Eucharist had its accidents of bread turned into the accidents of human myocardial (heart) muscle that is alive, but on the point of death. These took place in Tixtla, Mexico in 2006 and Legnica, Poland in 2013. They have been summarised here in: Tixtla and Legnica.

Thanks to miracles such as these I have, been able to accept transubstantiation as it is taught.

Other Miracles

The Catholic Church doesn't keep a central record of miracles, because alleged miracles are checked and approved for specific reasons, such as the beatification of a saint or miracles specific to an area. However, efforts have been made by lay people to collect records of miracles, such as the Miracle Hunter website and a website which showcases an exhibition created by 15 year old Carlo Acutis for Eucharistic miracles, http://www.miracolieucaristici.org. I was so impressed by Carlo's work, and worried that it would disappear, that I have downloaded his work here (a higher quality collection can be found on his website).

There are many miracles documented in biographies of saints and many books written on events such as The Miracle of the Sun at Fatima. It's up to you to read and decide for yourself, but from what I've read and the evidence I've seen, there are modern miracles that mean I can comfortably have faith.

We might ask ourselves Why doesn't God make his existence more obvious, so no-one could question it?. The goal of a Christian life is friendship with Jesus, and so friendship with God, yet for a friendship to be genuine, we must have the option of declining it. The 17^th century mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Catholic theologian Blaise Pascal put it rather nicely when he said: There is enough light for those who only desire to see, and enough obscurity for those who have a contrary disposition.