Dear friends of Fr. Benedict,

From Trinity Retreat

Wednesday August 11, 2004

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, a remarkable book came into my hands recently called Healing Fire of Christ by Father Paul Glynn, published last year by Ignatius Press. It is reflections on modern miracles. Father Glynn has done his homework and researches and quotes not only many medical professionals who have studied the cures of Lourdes but also the critics and those who attack the miracles without ever having been there. The most famous of these was the French writer Emil Zola, but the attacks continue today.
If you are interested in the subject of God’s power to heal the sick, Father Glynn’s book will be of great interest to you. Ruth Cranston, a distinguished Protestant leader of the ecumenical movement for many years, wrote about Lourdes in her book The Miracle of Lourdes (McGraw-Hill, 1955; Doubleday, 1988), a marvelous testimony to the healing power of God. Ruth Cranston was the daughter of a Methodist bishop and never became a Catholic, although she shows a very real respect for Catholics.
Franz Werfel, on the other hand, was a believing, practicing Jew all his life, but he saw in Lourdes a manifestation of faith in God in the face of the horrors of the Second World War. Another book is Patrick Marnham’s work Lourdes: A Modern Pilgrimage (Coward Geoghegan, 1981). If you cannot find these books, you might get Father Glynn’s book, which is easily available. It gives an extensive review of the experience of Dr. Alexis Carrel, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist who wrote The Voyage to Lourdes. Carrel looked all of his life for a scientific explanation of the miracles he had seen at Lourdes. At the end came to receive the sacraments of the Church because he was then convinced that the miracles had only a supernatural explanation.
Whatever your religious beliefs, you will find that Healing Fire of Christ opens to you the love of God for the sick and the wounded. It also gives great hope to the large number of people who ask the Lord for healing but do not receive it. More about this in the coming days.

Send your greetings to Fr. Benedict

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