Miracles of the Gods

blue sky Fatima is one great garden of expectation on 13 May and 13 October every year.

Fatima The children Jacinta Martos Francesco and Lucia Santas had their first vision of Mary around

noon on 13 July 1917 70,000—80,000 pilgrims saw the solar miracle on 13 October 1917.

From 11 February to 16 July 1858 Bernadette Soubirous had a total of 18 visions of Mary in this

grotto on the spot where the marble statue is worshipped by the hopeful today.

At night searchlights illuminate the row of taps from which bottles of all shapes and sizes are filled

with 'miraculous water.' According to analysis it is ordinary tap water.

A candle stall with a notice in German (There are others in all known languages ) The sea of candles

has been shining since 1858 The massive turnover also helps the Church.

Day after day the concourse below the basilica teems with thousands of pilgrims — Five million a

year.

In the square in front of the basilica male and female helpers push incapacitated patients towards the

miracle in wheel-chairs.

One of the many daily rosary processions, with megaphones and singing. They follow a strict

timetable.

Au Saint Basque. ... At Lourdes the saints are invoked to sell you everything — bottles, rosaries, clogs

...

Profane commerce flourishes side by side with prayer and hope.

Cars from all over the world. Shops with religious items by the dozen and in every one of them the

Madonna, 'made in Lourdes'.

Nowhere else in the world have I seen such a collection of differently shaped bottles potbellied and

spherical rectangular and triangular pocket sized and gallon-sized in every conceivable colour — all

for the wonder working water.

There is nothing they haven't got in the religious shops pictures of the saints and clogs purses bells

plates and sunglasses with the Madonna on every one.

I still remember perfectly the day when I, as a boarder at the strict Catholic College of Saint-Michel, Fribourg, first heard Jesus' moving speech of farewell to his Apostles, in which he announced the 'Last Judgment' to them and prophesied that the Lord 'shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left' (Matthew 25:33 et seq.).

Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungered, and ye gave me meat. I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and you took me in. Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison and ye came unto me.

The Prefect of the College exhorted us to live every day in such a way that we stood before God with a pure heart at every moment, because we had never doubted his word, because we had always believed God's word, without deviating one iota from the scripture.

During the sermon I realized that I would definitely stand on the left side, for I was full of doubts.

How is that, I mused? Is the Prefect right when he says that God will reward the faithful who have no doubts? Will those who can believe without temptation stand on the right hand side of God? Simply because they have always believed? True, the Prefect incessantly based himself on God's word, but he had never been present at a heavenly selection board or when the faithful were rewarded! The Prefect might be wrong.

For all my doubts I was nevertheless convinced at the time that Jesus, the Son of God, had coined the wonderful moving words. Today I know that this text, too, originated from the so-called 'Testament of Joseph' [21]. I quote: I was sold as a slave, but the Lord made me free; I was taken prisoner, but his strong hand helped me; I was tormented with hunger, but the Lord fed me; I was alone, but God comforted me, I was ill, but the All Highest visited me; I was in prison, but the Saviour blessed me.

Is further proof needed that Jesus' words were not born of his 'divine spirit'? They were in religious use long before him. (So far none of the many explanations has interpreted his words as archetypal memories from the unconscious [C.G. Jung] ... but even then they would not be of divine origin.)

To me it seems quite certain that Jesus entered the school of the Essenes and had an extremely profound