Thursday, November 7, 2013

I Don’t Know If This Really Is A Miracle, But I Have Goosebumps. This Stuff Is Bizarre.

Even if you don’t believe in miracles, you can’t deny that these 10 undeniably strange occurrences in history are incredible phenomena. Apparitions seen by thousands and stigmata recorded on video are just two of the “miracles” on this list. If you’re a non-believer, this could change your mind. Or maybe not. Only one way to find out…read on. 10. Marian Apparition in Zeitoun (1968 – 1970): A Marian apparation is when the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to witnesses, regardless of their faith.
This famous case is named Our Lady of Zeitoun because it took place in Zeitoun, Cairo, and contrary to the norm, the apparition was witnessed by millions of people over a period of 2 to 3 years. It was even caught on tape (as seen in the photographs).
9. Incorruptible Corpses: Incorruptibility is the name given to the situation when a person does not decay (or become corrupted) after death.
Incorruptible saints remain completely flexible, they do not decay and some are said to have the “Odour of Sanctity,” exuding a sweet aroma.
The Catholic church views incorruptibility as a sign of sainthood, but not a necessity. Over the years there have been hundreds of Saints whose bodies have been found to be incorrupt.
8. Therese Neumann (1896 – 1962): Therese Neumann was a German Catholic that sustained falls, injuries, paralysis and blindness. She was also a stigmatic. She reported that her eyesight was restored after years of blindness, which lead her to being beatified (the first step to sainthood).
During some Lenten seasons, she claimed she was experiencing the Passion of Christ, supposedly suffering in her own body along with his injuries.
By November 5, 1926, she displayed nine wounds on her head and also wounds on her back and shoulders. Until her death in 1962, Therese Neumann said she only consumed The Holy Eucharist, and to have drunk no water from 1926 until her death (with nurses watching and confirming her claims).
7. Statue in Akita (1973 – 1975): In 1973, Sister Agnes Katsuko Sasagawa in Akita, Japan had visions of the Virgin Mary. A cross-shaped wound appeared on the inside of her left hand. It bled profusely and caused her much pain.
Sister Agnes also heard a voice coming from the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the chapel where she was praying. The same statue was also seen bleeding, sweating and crying by other sisters. It wept on 101 occasions. Scientific analysis of blood and tears from the statute provided by Professor Sagisaka of the faculty of Legal Medicine of the University of Akita confirmed that the blood, tears, and perspiration are real human tears, sweat, and blood.
6. Our Lady of Lourdes (1858): Bernadette Soubirous, a 14 year-old peasant girl from Lourdes, told her mother that she saw a “lady” while she was out doing chores.
The lady appeared multiple times. During one of the apparitions, Bernadette was directed by the lady to dig near a rock and drink from the spring there. A large spring appeared and even today, people flock there for miraculous cures. The Lourdes Medical Bureau have declared 68 cases of inexplicable cures (out of thousands tested).
5. Joseph of Cupertino (1603 – 1663): The Italian saint Joseph of Cupertino was said to have been prone to miraculous levitation and intense ecstatic visions. He is recognized as the patron saint of air travelers, aviators, people with a mental handicap and weak students.
In 1630, Joseph was assisting in a feast for Saint Francis of Assisi when he suddenly began to levitate. It wasn’t his first levitation and he soon became known as “The Flying Saint.”
4. Tilma of Juan Diego (1474 – 1548): Saint Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin reported an apparition of the Virgin Mary as Our Lady of Guadalupe in 1531. As an indigenous Mexican, he was instrumental in the spread of the Catholic faith within Mexico.
He returned home that night to his uncle Juan Bernardino’s house and found out that he was gravely sick. The next morning, he went in search of a priest that could deliver his uncle’s last rites. The Lady intercepted him, assured him his uncle would not die and asked him to climb the hill and pick the flowers that were found there. It was too cold for flowers, but he found roses from the region of Castille in Spain. The Lady re-arranged the roses carefully inside the folded tilma that Juan Diego wore and told him not to open it before anyone but the bishop. When Juan Diego unfolded his tilma before the Bishop roses cascaded from his tilma, and an icon of Our Lady of Guadalupe was miraculously impressed on the cloth. The original tilma is on display in Guadalupe today and is one of the most frequently visited pilgrimage sites in the world. 3. Padre Pio (1887 – 1968): Francesco Forgione, also known as Padre Pio, was canonized as Saint Pio of Pietrelcina. He was an Italian Roman Catholic Capuchin priest that became famous for his stigmata.
Padre Pio wanted to suffer in secret, but by 1919, news about the stigmatic friar began to spread in the secular world. Padre Pio’s wounds were examined by many people, including physicians.
People close to him claim that he began to manifest several spiritual gifts including the gifts of healing, bilocation, levitation, prophecy, miracles, extraordinary abstinence from both sleep and nourishment, the ability to read hearts, the gift of tongues, the gift of conversions, and the fragrance from his wounds. His body was discovered to be incorrupt.
2. The Miracle of Lanciano (700 AD): In Lanciano, Italy, a Basilian monk was assigned to celebrate the Eucharistic sacrifice in the Latin Rite in the small Church of St.Legontian. During the Mass, when he said the words of consecration, he saw the bread change into live flesh and the wine change into live blood.
The Flesh is a heart complete in its essential structure. The Flesh and the Blood were discovered to be the same blood type, AB, which is also the same blood type found on the Shroud of Turin and all other Eucharistic Miracles. The Host-Flesh, which is the same size as the large Host used today in the Latin Church, is fibrous and light brown in color, and becomes rose-colored when lighted from the back. The Blood consists of five coagulated globules and has an earthly color resembling the yellow of ochre.
1. The Miracle of the Sun (1917): The Miracle of the Sun is an alleged miraculous event witnessed by as many as 100,000 people on October 13, 1917 in the Cova da Iria fields near Fátima, Portugal. According to witnesses, after a downfall of rain, the dark clouds broke and the sun appeared as an opaque, spinning disk in the sky.
The sun was reporteed to have careened towards the earth in a zigzag pattern (like something out of Super Mario), frightening some of those present. The miracle was attributed to Our Lady of Fátima, an apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The miraculous event was officially accepted as a miracle by the Roman Catholic Church in 1930.

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