Tuesday, March 19, AD 2024 6:18am

Miracles and the Catholic Church

It has always surprised me that the Church does not emphasize the miracles that have routinely occurred though out her history.  Case in point, Father James Bruse.  From 1991-1993 this priest in Virginia had the stigmata, and holy statues would weep when he was present.  He has no idea why the miracles started and why they stopped, but we have hard evidence from skeptical eye witnesses at the time that the miracles occurred.

This from The Washington Post, March 13, 1992:

 

 

Then a reporter from Channel 5. And then her T-shirted cameraman. There’s something entirely new in his demeanor.

The statue, which has a halo and seems to be made of plaster, is on a fake wood bookcase. There are no visible wires. No battery-operated tear ducts like a religious Chatty Cathy with a hole in her back where you put in the size C’s. This statue seems actually to be producing water. The water, from what the naked eye can tell, is forming at the corner of the right eye. But the eye is very small and so it is hard to know for sure.

The Washington Post reporter is standing maybe four inches from the Blessed Mother’s nose. There’s gotta be a trick here. It’s as if the water is just appearing right out of the plaster and then rolling downward.

A bead forms under the alabaster-pink chin. It swells. BLOP, it falls. There are four tiny puddles of water at the statue’s base now.

Proof positive you can be seeing something and still not believe you’re seeing it.

This isn’t possible, of course, but a 37-year-old Catholic priest in the exurbs of Washington, down among the split-levels of I-95, is touching parish statues — and they start to “weep.” Small crystal clear droplets of water will visibly well up in the statues’ eyes, will line the ridge of their noses, will suspend at their chins, will form Lilliputian pools at their plaster or bronze or wood or fiberglass feet.

Sometimes it’s just an odd drop of water or two a particular statue will produce, and sometimes it’s a whole coursing mini-stream.

It’s done with mirrors and blue smoke, natch. Or computers. Or it’s atmospheric. Or the guy making this happen, who clearly has a head problem, has magic buttons up the sleeve of his black priest shirt.

But hold on.

Sometimes the Rev. James Bruse doesn’t need to touch the statues but only has to be in their proximity — on the altar saying Mass, or maybe seated at his desk in his windowless parish office. And then a statue will begin to water. Will start to produce something that is, by touch and taste, what we know as H2O.

It never happens on cue. There’s always a certain unpredictability. Which is what the otherworldly is about. Though not just the otherworldly, come to think of it.

The man apparently making this happen isn’t a cardinal or a bishop or some other church potentate. He’s a low-ranking associate pastor at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church in Lake Ridge. A cleric with an extremely low profile even within his own diocese. God, if He’s behind all this, makes His unfathomable choices, picks His unsuspecting spots.

One of the chief watering statues at the parish — it’s of Christ’s mother and is about three feet high and is olive in color — is affixed to a wood base on the side of the main altar. It’s flanked by a statue of Saint Joseph and by dozens of votive lights that flicker throughout the day, having been lighted by the swelling faithful. According to those who run the parish, many times in the past six or seven weeks, during or before or after a service, this statue of Mary has been clearly observed “welling up.” At least once copiously. Observed by puzzled, awe-struck, semi-frightened parishioners. By the otherwise curious, now flocking in.

Other statues at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church have been observed watering in recent weeks too. They’re in different places on the parish grounds, though most are in the rectory. Most, not all, are statues of Mary. The rectory is about 100 yards from the church itself, over a small wooded hill. That’s where the pastor and the associate pastor have their offices and private quarters.

People are coming now to these grounds from Pennsylvania and Florida and Newport News to see for themselves whatever there is to see. Sometimes they leave disappointed: It doesn’t happen. TV has rolled in.

But that’s only the watering part; you haven’t heard the bleeding part. It’s spookier yet. Because it turns out that the shy, short, pompadoured, semi-inarticulate man who once wanted to be a state trooper and whose uncharismatic priestly presence seems — against all terrestrial logic — to be causing strange things to happen in his midst has also experienced tiny red weltlike marks on the tops and undersides of his wrists. And in his side too, he says. And on the tops of his feet too, he says.

Marks that replicate the wounds of Christ on His cross.

And these wounds have leaked blood. Suddenly, inexplicably. “Seepage” is the way people at the church describe them.

The bleeding has now stopped. The wounds are now all but gone. But earlier this week traces of them were still visible on the cleric’s wrists. Bruse willingly exhibited them. They were like small red burls on the roots of trees.

The recent death of United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia reminded me of the so-called “Seton Miracles”, his belief in them and their relation to the Jesus King of All Nations Devotion.

The Seton Miracles included a priest’s wounds of the stigmata and incidents surrounding him such as weeping statues of the Blessed Virgin Mary, changing-color rosaries, miracle colors and lights in the sky, and miraculous healings from 1991 to 1993 at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church in Woodbridge, Virginia.

The priest’s name was Father James Bruse. He was the spiritual director of the mystic who received the revelations of the Jesus King of All Nations Devotion. He was also our apostolate’s first spiritual director.

I personally witnessed Father Bruse’s stigmata wounds and the weeping of a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary that he held in my presence. He reported many conversions and healings through his prayers. He told me that some of the phenomena that he experienced were connected to the Jesus King of All Nations Devotion. In His image, Jesus King of All Nations reveals His stigmata wounds.

On October 21, 2010, Justice Scalia gave an address in which he talked about the Seton Miracles, which he believed. He asked, “Why wasn’t that church absolutely packed with nonbelievers seeking to determine if there might be something to this?”

The answer was obvious, he said with disdain, “The wise do not investigate such silliness.”

Father Bruse’s pastor, Father Daniel Hamilton, saw the stigmata wounds on Father Bruse’s wrists, a statue in Father Bruse’s room producing blood, and other crying and bleeding statues.

“Father Bruse came to the ultimate cynic,” Father Hamilton said. “I don`t believe in these kinds of things. I told him it must be the result of atmospheric conditions.” The two priests then exchanged statues.

“When he gave me the statue, I noticed these marks on his wrists,” Father Hamilton said. “I said to him, ‘Stigmata.’ But, he didn’t know what I was talking about or what those marks meant.” So, I said, “Didn’t they teach you anything in the seminary?”

“Later, I went to Father Bruse`s room at the rectory. I looked at his statue of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton and the statue was crying blood. I backed out of his room.”

“When I returned to my own room, the statue of Mary that Father Bruse had given me was crying.”

Father Hamilton said, “Of course I doubted it in the beginning. And then I saw some of this stuff he’d been talking about. It’s true. That’s all I can tell you. It’s true. It’s true.

Go here to read the rest.  Father Bruse is currently the pastor of Our Lady of the Blue Ridge parish in Madison, Virginia.  The attitude of the official Church to the remarkable occurrences that surrounded him from 1991-1993 has ranged from indifference to attempts to suppress mention of them.  Initial caution in the face of apparent miracles is always advisable, due to the number of fake miracles that con artists have attempted to manufacture down through the ages.  Here, however, we have well documented miracles around a humble priest who has made no attempt to profit from them and who confessed that he was completely baffled by them.  The complete indifference of the official Church to these remarkable events strikes me as idiocy or worse.
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Philip Nachazel
Philip Nachazel
Sunday, August 12, AD 2018 4:19am

It’s a miracle that the most clumsy inept parish priest or the greatest and most devoted priest both participate in the miracle of the sacrifice of the Mass. To participate with the Holy Spirit in the changing of the essence of bread and wine to Body and Blood of God is miraculous.

That despite our unworthiness or that of our leadership in Holy Catholic Church, the gracious God continues to Love us. What a miracle.

That we have today to worship Him and receive Him and then bring Him to others is another miraculous event. Expect A Miracle. They are right in front of you. That a man and woman, husband and wife, can get up this morning and make of themselves a gift to the other after 25 years of marriage is a miracle.
Forty years. Sixty years. 75 years together.

Maybe that’s what Blessed Fr. Salonus Casey meant when he said; “… Life is to live and life is to give. And talents to use for good if you choose. Do not pray for easy lives but pray to be stronger. Do not pray for tasks that are equal to your talents, but pray for the talents that are equal to the task. Then the ( doing of your work is no miracle but YOU become the miracle). Everyday you shall wonder at yourself, at the richness of life that has been
given to you by the grace of God.”

Philip Nachazel
Philip Nachazel
Sunday, August 12, AD 2018 5:00am

I agree with you Mr. McClarey.

Maybe the powers that be wish the dominant to be reason over faith.(?)

Philip Nachazel
Philip Nachazel
Sunday, August 12, AD 2018 7:20am

How many indeed!

May I be so bold as to ask you for prayers for a co-worker who is on the fence about converting to Catholism? She is so close.

Thanks in advance.
Peace.

Lazarus Gethsemane
Lazarus Gethsemane
Sunday, August 12, AD 2018 9:11am

I really wish my fellow Catholics would stop falling for this stuff. Weeping statues have long been debunked. It’s relatively easy to create the illusion. You can even buy do-it-yourself weeping statue kits online. And while I’m at it – I keep seeing Catholics on FaceBook who constantly post pictures of the corpses of supposedly “incorruptible” saints with their very alive looking faces. But there’s one problem, they all have wax masks covering their decomposed faces OR they have been heavily embalmed and maintained.

Philip Nachazel
Philip Nachazel
Sunday, August 12, AD 2018 10:30am

Lazarus.

But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.”

St. Padre Pio was a wonder in our time.
Eye witness accounts.
Bi-location.
Odor of sanctity.
The stigmata.
Ability to read hearts in confessional.

Hocus Pocus some say?

When an acquaintance asked him if it, the wounds of Christ, hurt when he bled St. Pio said; “Of course it hurts!”
Jesus will do what He wants when He wants with whom He wants regardless of opinions of others. God is glorified in His Miracles and countless faithful are moved to deeper love and service as a result.

Are Miracles efficacious for the faithful?

They can be for those who believe.
For those who don’t….

Lazarus Gethsemane
Lazarus Gethsemane
Sunday, August 12, AD 2018 10:44am

Philip Nachazel,
My statement wasn’t directed at *all* reported miracles. However, I think most miracles are extremely rare. And there’s a vast difference between a miracle that Our Lord performed and the supposed miracles attributed to mere humans. And it really irritates me when people insinuate that there is something illicit or even sinful in healthy skepticism of these incidents. After all, even Our Lord didn’t castigate Thomas when he was rightfully stated his skepticism over Our Lord’s resurrection. Everyone needs to remember that these miracles attributed to humans are *not* a mandatory part of Catholic theology.

Foxfier
Admin
Sunday, August 12, AD 2018 10:52am

You can even buy do-it-yourself weeping statue kits online

Which has the small problem of those statues without kits….

It’s like how I can fake a smile, but that doesn’t mean nobody ever smiles for real.

***********

I like the little miracles. My favorite is when my guardian angel cut my brake line.

(If this were face to face, I’d stop for a beat here.)

My folks didn’t like my little neon for winter driving, so they talked me into using a big old style minivan for the winter. Had it carefully checked out before I took it to Spokane, I didn’t drive it much but I learned to drive on farm equipment– it was in alright shape.

Day before I went for an all-day trip that’s mostly mountain passes, I went to the grocery store. The brakes were fine.
I came out. The brakes felt squishy.
I was driving back to my apartment, arguing with myself if I should stop at Schwab and have them do the (free) brake check. VERY squishy, and the brake light came on.

I almost didn’t stop when I got to the store, the brake was so squishy.

Told the guy at the desk, he walked out (correctly identifying “college age girl who is a little over-excited”) and checked it out.

Came in and read me the riot act about driving for most of a week with a slow leak, since the only hole he could find and the only drips were a very slow leak.

Really freaked out when I explained that it’d been totally fine, and only started that morning… his best guess is I would’ve found out about it just about the time I hit the grade going down to Grand Coolie Dam.

Lazarus Gethsemane
Lazarus Gethsemane
Sunday, August 12, AD 2018 11:03am

Foxfier, You can even buy do-it-yourself weeping statue kits online

“Which has the small problem of those statues without kits….”

How many of these statues have been subject to rigorous scientific analysis by qualified independent sources?

Lazarus Gethsemane
Lazarus Gethsemane
Sunday, August 12, AD 2018 11:06am

Foxfier, I like the little miracles. My favorite is when my guardian angel cut my brake line.

(If this were face to face, I’d stop for a beat here.)

LOL you’d be paused for sometime since my laughter would need a good 5 minutes to run its course. Please, just stop.

Foxfier
Admin
Sunday, August 12, AD 2018 11:11am

How many of these statues have been subject to rigorous scientific analysis by qualified independent sources?

If you’re not even aware of that, why should I spend time on it?

Seriously. It’s not like it’s unknown that they do investigate them– generally, it’s the folks who are believers who are the harshest investigators, kinda the point of the blog post, not that anybody with a familiarity with Houdini wouldn’t guess as much– and feigning ignorance to support an appeal to the same is a classic gadfly tactic.

Clinton
Clinton
Sunday, August 12, AD 2018 1:24pm

Certainly there are prelates who downplay miracles because they
want to be accepted at the cool kids’ table. But one also finds a
species of Church Professional infesting rectories and chanceries–
a species that has nothing but contempt for things the Church holds
dear, and even more contempt for rank-and-file Catholics that
“actually believe that nonsense”. Those Church Professionals are
there to remake the Church, to make Her a force for the social changes
they seek, to hijack her infrastructure and turn it to their own ends.
They think the idea that the Church has a supernatural dimension is
just a joke bought only by the rubes in the pews. Confronting an
actual, honest-to-God miracle would mean admitting they’re toying
with things beyond their ken. Of course they shut their eyes and deny,
deny, deny.

Lazarus Gethsemane
Lazarus Gethsemane
Sunday, August 12, AD 2018 1:51pm

Donald R. McClarey
“And I really wish that people would practice the skill of reading comprehension before commenting and making fools of themselves. Intentional fraud in this case is discounted by eyewitness testimony and the fact that the priest involved obviously had no intention to, and did not, profit in anyway from what happened.”

Speaking of reading comprehension skills – perhaps you missed my follow-up comment:

“How many of these statues have been subject to rigorous scientific analysis by qualified independent sources?”

Or are you seriously trying to claim that eyewitness testimony and the lack of a known profit is somehow equivalent to valid scientific evidence?

If so you’ve presented some very poor reasoning skills.

Lazarus Gethsemane
Lazarus Gethsemane
Sunday, August 12, AD 2018 1:55pm

Foxfier

How many of these statues have been subject to rigorous scientific analysis by qualified independent sources?

“If you’re not even aware of that, why should I spend time on it?”

LOL you should spend time on it so you can cite for me the ones that have passed valid scientific scrutiny and are possibly legitimate.

I would have thought that that informative motive was obvious.

Foxfier
Admin
Sunday, August 12, AD 2018 2:15pm

LOL you should spend time on it so you can cite for me the ones that have passed valid scientific scrutiny and are possibly legitimate.

Why?

You’ve made it clear you won’t go by a standard level of inquiry, evidence or even basic familiarity with the subject, so I’d have to be imagining your standard for you, finding sources that meet it, and then most likely have it dismissed with a bad-faith argument.

I’m not going to dance to the demands of someone who wants to wrap himself in science, but can’t be bothered to even apply logic.

CAM
CAM
Sunday, August 12, AD 2018 2:56pm

After the Washington Post story the then bishop banished Fr. Bruse to the NNK where he was the pastor of a parish and mission. He is a self-effacing man and I believe holy. At the mission we had only the 0900 Sunday Mass until we had a resident priest assigned. True Fr. Bruse was not the best reader of the Gospel but his ex-temp homilies were very good and from the heart. When he was named to the church near Orange many at St. Francis de Sales and St. Paul were sad to see this beloved priest transfer. He is also a healer as a friend of mine battling cancer can attest too.
One of his hobbies Is/was riding roller coasters. As a young man he was trying for the Guinness Book of Records longest continuous coaster ride . When asked one Sunday after Mass what he was going to do on his vacation, he answered, “Ride roller coasters!”
Not too long ago I found out that he had scripted a children’s movie and donated the money to charity.

Lazarus Gethsemane
Lazarus Gethsemane
Sunday, August 12, AD 2018 4:26pm

All I have asked for is some valid scientific analysis of these claimed “miracles” That’s it. That’s all.

But by the histrionic responses I’ve gotten you would have thought that I tried to murder someone. It’s difficult enough for the average Catholic like myself to have any faith these days. The entire institutional Church is infested with lies and deception – I even find it impossible to accept the Doctrine of Papal infallibility anymore after the utter heresy that we hear everyday from the Worm who currently occupies the Chair of Peter. So it doesn’t help my weakening faith when I see Catholics peddling unsubstantiated stuff like this – especially in a faith that has historically been steeped in reasonable and logical discernment.

I don’t know what’s going on in the Church anymore…. Satan seems to be winning on all fronts.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Monday, August 13, AD 2018 2:16am

I have always been intrigued by the Miracle of the Holy Thorn.

Pascal’s 10-year old niece, Marguerite Perier, the daughter of his sister Gilberte was a boarder at the convent school of Port Royal.

She had suffered for three and a half years from a a “fistula lacrymalis” in the corner of her left eye. This fistula, which was very large externally, had made great ravages within. The bones of the nose were become carious, and perforated to the palate; so that the discharge, which was continual, ran down her cheeks and nostrils, and sometimes into the throat. Her eye was considerably diminished, and the parts around so diseased that to touch her head on that side caused great pain.

Fearing that the ulcer would extend itself over the face, three of the most able surgeons of Paris, MM. Cresse, Gelliard, and Dalence advised the actual cautery, without, at the same time, expressing much hope of a cure.

During Vespers on 24 March, 1656,the Sainte Épine (reputedly a relic of the Crown of Thorns) was venerated and Marguerite’s aunt, Sœur Euphemie Pascal applied it to the child’s eye. The cure was complete and instantaneous. Six physicians and five surgeons, who had previously been consulted about her case, testified to the cure.

Now, Port Royal was the leading centre of Jansenism and their Jesuit opponents, unable to deny the reality of the cure, were not slow to insist that “miracles must be judged by doctrine and not doctrine by miracles.” Pascal retorted: “John 6:30. Quod ergo tu facis signum ut videamus et credamus tibi? (Non dicunt: Quam doctrinam praedicas?)” [What sign do you show, then, that we may see, and believe you? (They do not say: What doctrine do you preach?)]”

Soon, there were another 14 alleged cures, then 80, by no means all of them so well attested as Mlle Perrier’s cure. Even some Jansenists, including the Abbé Saint-Cyran and, especially Pierre Nicole, found the whole thing an embarrassment. Nicole deplored “the credulity, the impostures, the lack of critical intelligence” displayed by large numbers of the faithful. He argued that miracles were a distraction from the need for austerity and discipline in religious practice and for an interior mortification of the senses.

The Most Christian King ordered the chapel of Port-Royal to be closed to the public, leading to some wit affixing a sign to the door:

« De par le roi,
Défense à dieu
De faire miracles
En ce lieu »

[The king forbids God to work miracles here]

Philip Nachazel
Philip Nachazel
Monday, August 13, AD 2018 3:57am

Great account MPS.
“The king forbids God to work miracles here.”
Perfect.

Lourdes first miracle was the healing of the man who was blind since birth. The mother of the man took water that had just bubbled up from the muddy waters that Bernadette was instructed to eat grass from. As people we’re still laughing and scorning Bernadette, saying; “Look at her! The child is crazy,” this poor woman believed that God had sent The Virgin Mary and Bernadette was telling the truth.

That faith healed her blind son. The water is normal water however the mother had faith and acted upon it.

Steve Phoenix
Steve Phoenix
Monday, August 13, AD 2018 7:42am

Michael Paterson-Seymour’s fascinating account, with great detail (Thank you, MPS), of the Miracle of the Holy Thorn, quite illustrates something, as does the Virginia priest case here.

It is interesting to encounter the either annoyed silence or even angry response of some who appear actually offended, and even aggravated, to allow that God may actively wish to do good, even by means we do not and may never “control” by our understanding them—“miracles”—in our lives.

I recall from long ago reading an interview in a Notre Dame publication of the late Fr Richard P. McBrien, the Great Luminary of Theology of the Golden Dome, in which he was clearly aggravated and annoyed at the many miracles of Padre Pio in the confessional. He sniffed that, due to the long lines and abrupt manner of the saint, “It could not have been much of a sacramental experience.” Of course, the good Fr. McBrien never afforded himself the opportunity to visit P. Pio, which he could have done after his ordination in 1962, and confirm his predetermined position. (Why should he, when the waters of Damascus are better than the waters of Israel, 2 Kg. 5)

Rather like the Miracle of the Holy Thorn, some people seem to react with an angry functional agnosticism: they grant that God exists (may exist?) but God couldn’t possibly intervene in our lives in such silly, and rustic, and “country” way.

How dare He.

Foxfier
Admin
Monday, August 13, AD 2018 8:48am

All I have asked for is some valid scientific analysis of these claimed “miracles” That’s it. That’s all.

No, you rolled in with a false and painfully unscientific claim about weeping statues as a category having been debunked. My eight year old knows enough of the scientific method to recognize that assertion cannot be supported.

And that’s before the attempted subject change to incorruptible saints, which suggests your only exposure to the subject has been especially ignorant atheists who aren’t above either hiding evidence to promote their conclusions or simply assuming that everyone who doesn’t agree is stupid and blind.

Your notion of “healthy skepticism” is extremely unhealthy, before one gets into the way you lard accusations on to it yet howl when someone doesn’t take you as the very picture of good will and scientific inquiry.

Foxfier
Admin
Monday, August 13, AD 2018 8:53am

(Fallacy of composition, for those curious, although the 8 year old doesn’t remember the formal name; and also the assumption that when evidence for the desired conclusion couldn’t be found, it was a problem with the investigation, rather than that there wasn’t the desired evidence.)

CAM
CAM
Monday, August 13, AD 2018 9:07am

The Vatican recognized a healing miracle by Fr Bruse: I was reminded after Mass this a.m. that the miracle was healing a young child of an inoperable brain tumor. Years later he officiated at her wedding, saying it was one of the greatest days of his life.

Mary De Voe
Monday, August 13, AD 2018 10:08am

Miracles. Each and every human being, his life, his existence is a miracle. Man procreates. God creates. All creation in heaven and earth and under the earth praise God. But only man can know, love and serve God and know and love and serve his neighbor. And the atheist searches for God.

Mary De Voe
Monday, August 13, AD 2018 10:43am

Most atheists are very angry with God for creating them. The atheist denies “their Creator” with his God-given free will.
The atheist is the greatest proof that God is.
The Supreme Sovereign Being, our God is able to do all things, except contradict Himself. It is up to man through the Catholic Church to determine if the miracle is from God or from the evil one.
Lazarus Gethsemane’s quarrel is not with the faithful but with Satan who has seduced and lied to him/her.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Monday, August 13, AD 2018 12:06pm

Philip Nachazel

“The king forbids God to work miracles here.”

Pascal took an oblique hit at the royal prohibition when he wrote, “Here is a sacred relic. Here is a thorn from the crown of the Saviour of the world, over whom the prince of this world has no power, which works miracles by the peculiar power of the blood shed for us. Now God Himself chooses this house there conspicuously to display His power…”

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Monday, August 13, AD 2018 2:50pm

I may be mistaken, but it sounds like one commenter may have been jealous that God used a rumpled, disheveled priest whose Roman collar isn’t fixed right but who loves his cat to do miracles. Imagine that! Are there more priests like this one?

Lazarus Gethsemane
Lazarus Gethsemane
Monday, August 13, AD 2018 7:38pm

Mary De Voe, I’m not an atheist. And no faithful Catholic is obliged to believe in any “miracles” attributed to any saints. Prove me wrong.

Lazarus Gethsemane
Lazarus Gethsemane
Monday, August 13, AD 2018 7:46pm

Foxfier, you just keep spewing like a sophist beating a dead horse pretending that you’re actually making some sort of logical discernment based on the empirical evidence of scientific scrutiny. But all you’re really doing is advancing pure baseless supposition based on nothing more than peoples personal testimonies – which is worthless. And your blather is further proof that you’ve been triggered.

So again tell me, where can I find any cases of these weeping statues that have been validated by independent scientific examination of the statues themselves? Cite that for me – show me – or shut up.

Lazarus Gethsemane
Lazarus Gethsemane
Monday, August 13, AD 2018 7:53pm

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, yes – you are wrong. I couldn’t care less about the priest with the cat (BTW I love cats) and I’m hardly jealous of anyone here. If anything, I’m embarrassed that so many faithful Catholics continue to advance such baseless superstitious flim-flam in an effort to convince themselves that the Divine does exist. But I’ll make the same challenge to you that I have to the others: FACT: NO Catholic is obliged to believe this bilge. And you have NO theological or moral basis to castigate anyone who doesn’t believe. Now prove me wrong.

GregB
GregB
Monday, August 13, AD 2018 8:52pm

To me the reason why God or the Holy Mother Mary uses the lowly and the simple is that they are the only ones who will let God and Mary get a word in edgewise, and who will be the least likely to twist their messages to serve a personal agenda.

Foxfier
Admin
Monday, August 13, AD 2018 9:08pm

Cite that for me – show me – or shut up.

No.

You have not refuted any argument I made, you have not offered a rational defense of your claims, so: no.
I will not bow to your demands, as if you were someone acting in good faith.

Lazarus Gethsemane
Lazarus Gethsemane
Monday, August 13, AD 2018 9:48pm

Foxfier, your ridiculous arguments refute themselves you petulant little trifle. The simple fact that you cannot cite any valid examples of any “weeping statues” is itself, a thorough refutation of your fairy-tales. Objective reality is not your friend, Peter Pan. Your stupidity bows to objective reality.

Mary De Voe
Monday, August 13, AD 2018 9:57pm

“Mary De Voe, I’m not an atheist. And no faithful Catholic is obliged to believe in any “miracles” attributed to any saints. Prove me wrong.”
One only must believe the articles of Faith, that almighty God is almighty and can heal the sick and raise the dead.
“the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God” from our Declaration of Independence tells us that God rules over Nature.
If Jesus Christ weeps over the City of Jerusalem, then why are the statures not allowed to weep for the Son of God and the Creator?
And if people see statues weeping and the stigmata why must they be assaulted verbally and mocked?

Foxfier
Admin
Monday, August 13, AD 2018 10:06pm

Foxfier, your ridiculous arguments refute themselves you petulant little trifle.

That isn’t how logic works.

Concession accepted.

Lazarus Gethsemane
Lazarus Gethsemane
Monday, August 13, AD 2018 10:19pm

Foxfier, that is precisely how the objective reality of science works.

Your permanent defeat is noted – as is your inanity.

Lazarus Gethsemane
Lazarus Gethsemane
Monday, August 13, AD 2018 10:24pm

Mary De Voe, And if people see statues weeping and the stigmata why must they be assaulted verbally and mocked?

I’m the one being assaulted and mocked in here. But to answer your question: Substitute the equally absurd “unicorns” and “leprechauns” for “statues weeping” and “stigmata” and then asked that question. Meanwhile, let’s all make a shrine out of the next piece of burnt toast that has Christ’s image on it. Yes?

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Tuesday, August 14, AD 2018 12:19am

Wow! Even if the statues weeping is some kind of trick, I would really stop with the overly done skepticism by now. Do people give glory to God, statues weeping or not? And really, why does it bother me so much that I just got to prove my skepticism right to everyone here?

PS, I am kind of skeptical of weeping statues too. But attacking Foxfier? And putting an otherwise holy priest down? We got enough negativity with Bergoglio’s heresies and that Cardinal’s sex perversions. I think it’s time for someone to shut the heck up and leave his skepticism elsewhere.

Mary De Voe
Tuesday, August 14, AD 2018 6:15am

To begin “unicorns” and leprechauns” are imaginary creatures. Statues of our Blessed Mother are statues of real persons. Believers are not compelled to believe in any other thing but articles of Faith, a gift from God. Burnt toast images of Christ are nice but it is Jesus Christ WHO is adored not the burnt toast. Man has freedom of religion according to our Bill of Rights. Man’s conscience in matters of Faith may not be dismissed. Man has human dignity from the very first moment of his existence and forever, eternally. It is man’s dignity that causes him to suffer eternal fire in Gehenna.
Your inability to focus on the freedom and grace of the faithful has blurred your own vision of joy, destiny and Happiness.
Using words like “absurd”, and “inanity” only falls back on you looking “absurd” and “inane”. Why do you think that you can call other people “absurd” and “inane”and live unscathed? Or cry about being mocked while mocking people of Faith. You need to find another venue for your venom. It will not be tolerated here.

Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Tuesday, August 14, AD 2018 1:14pm

” (Why should he, when the waters of Damascus are better than the waters of Israel, 2 Kg. 5″ That hits the nail on the head. It is foolish pride which keeps us from so many many blessings.
http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=2+Kings+5:1-17&version=nrsv

Steve Phoenix
Steve Phoenix
Tuesday, August 14, AD 2018 4:02pm

Atheists have it hard and not just on the miracle issue:

” I once wanted to be an atheist but I gave it up because I found out they had no holidays.” —Henny Youngman

Steve Phoenix
Steve Phoenix
Tuesday, August 14, AD 2018 4:20pm

Regarding fairly well documented evidence and an approved Catholic appearance of an apparition of Virgin Mary and involving a weeping statue, there is the matter of Our Lady of Akita in Japan, who appeared to give messages starting in 1973 to Sister Agnes Sasagawa and which continued for several years.

Mary De Voe
Wednesday, August 15, AD 2018 7:19am

“Atheists have it hard and not just on the miracle issue:
” I once wanted to be an atheist but I gave it up because I found out they had no holidays.” —Henny Youngman”
Man is a soul clothed in flesh. Atheists discard more than holidays. Atheists discard and deny all free will, sovereign personhood, the rational soul, all unalienable human rights and every grace and blessing endowed to the rational, immortal human soul by an infinite Supreme Sovereign Being.
“The rights the (finite) state gives, the (finite) state can take away.” Thomas Jefferson. Unalienable human rights are unalienable because they are endowed by an infinite God
Atheism itself is finite. The devil is not an atheist. God created St. Lucifer. Lucifer created hell for himself and for the human race.

trackback
Sunday, August 26, AD 2018 11:01pm

[…] 1993: Stigmatic Priest in the U.S. was Ignored by the Hierarchy, Why? […]

Mechelle
Mechelle
Monday, August 27, AD 2018 9:16am

Never be GOD and say it is real or not real but know GOD is in control and when we JUDGE GOD we will be JUDGED. Our Lord has allowed the Stigmata on many souls for the conversion of sinners and to increase the faith of the FAITHLESS.. Never become your own GOD because that is Mortal Sin. St Padre Pio had all of the gifts JESUS Christ did.

Louis Gasper
Louis Gasper
Monday, August 27, AD 2018 10:34am

Father Bruse, with all the other priests of the diocese, was concelebrating the chrism Mass with the bishop. During the canon, he felt the stigmata start to bleed. He stood still, hoping no one else would notice, thinking he would wipe away the blood with his handkerchief when it wouldn’t draw attention. When the time came, he was able to do that, but found the blood had run UP his arms, tracing just the course it would had he been hanging on a cross.

Those who will not believe will offer natural explanations for the unnaturally weird phenomena that took place around Father Bruse – your narrative recites only a small fraction of them. Often their god is science, and they will refuse to believe their own senses because the phenomena have not been “rigorously scientifically tested.” But the key is they will not believe: WILL not.

For those who have the Faith, miracles are unnecessary and perhaps even just distracting. For those who will not believe, miracles are never adequate. Between them are those whose Faith is merely insecure. The great principle of the Church is that a true miracle is always given for a purpose. In Father Bruse’s case, it may have been because the parish to which he was assigned was going over the edge, insecure in its belief. The parish was brought back to solid belief and religious practice. That having been accomplished, the miracles ceased.

When the story of Father Bruse’s stigmata first broke, Father Hamilton hosted a kind of press conference. One reporter asked if Father Bruse could make a statue weep while they were there. Father Hamilton quite rightly replied “this is not a carnival.” What looks like hierarchical indifference is perhaps a reluctance to indulge the carnival mentality. Perhaps the bishop guards too much against the danger of a cult of personality being established but be clear that around any public miracle there is real danger that people will come to believe more in the miracle worker than in God.

One small point about your narrative: one could take away the impression that the stigmata merely oozed a bit. Often they did, but sometimes there was copious blood from the wound in Father Bruse’s side, enough to soak right through his underwear, shirt, and alb.

When he was a transitional deacon, Father Bruse assisted at my daughter’s funeral, the first infant funeral he had ever experienced. I haven’t been in touch with him for a long time. Thank you for the more recent photo of him. He has aged better than I have.

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