Read about It. Рахимбергенова М.Х. - 29 стр.

NEWSWEEK Poll, 84 percent of adult Americans say they believe that           Hebrew prophets Elijah and Elisha, and set the pattern for the same
God performs miracles and nearly half (48 percent) report that they          miracles to be worked by the apostles Peter and Paul.
have personally experienced or witnessed one. Three fourths of Ameri-               Newsweek’s reporting on contemporary miracle stories, and the
can Catholics say they pray for miracles, and among non-Christians –         historical research I undertook for «The Book of Miracles», demon-
and people of no faith at all – 43 percent say they have asked for God’s     strates that believers still make room for the miraculous. And the his-
intervention.                                                                tory of each faith explains why – even now – so many of us believe in
       Most Americans who pray for miracles ask for cures – for them-        the unbelievable.
selves or for loved ones. Indeed, half of those polled (50 percent) credit          For as long as she can remember, Angela Boudreaux has been
God with bringing back to life people who have been declared dead by         praying to Francis Xavier Seelos, a Redemptorist priest whose bones
medical authorities. Today, in fact, not only the Vatican but even some      lay buried in her parish church in Gretna, La. In the summer of 1966,
Muslim and Pentecostal groups have developed follow-up procedures to         Angela, now 70, was diagnosed with liver cancer. After exploratory
determine whether reported healings are in fact beyond medical expla-        surgery showed huge tumor masses throughout 90 percent of the organ,
nation.                                                                      she was given two weeks to live. «She looked like someone out of a con-
       But for the believers, the real question isn’t one of fact but of     centration camp,» recalls her physician, Dr. Alfred J. Ruffy Jr., now a
faith. Whether the story is a sacred event like the parting of the Red Sea   retired professor from the Wake Forest School of Medicine. But Angela
or a contemporary account of a healing, the impulse is to ask, «Did this     prayed to Father Seelos, asking for time to raise her four children. Al-
miracle really happen?» The important issue, however, is not if a mira-      most immediately, Ruffy noticed that the grapefruit-size tumor had be-
cle «really» happened but what believers make of the stories of mira-        gun to shrink, a reversal he says could not be attributed to the rudi-
cles, whether the miraculous took place on the journey to the Promised       mentary chemotherapy he had used. «It was the most remarkable case
Land 3,000 years ago or in Philadelphia in our own time. Miracle sto-        I’ve ever been involved with,» says Ruffy. The following November, An-
ries, ancient and modern, do two things: they explain the ways of God        gela was on her feet and caring for her kids. The Roman Catholic
to the faithful, they are the means by which believers experience the        Church declared the cure a miracle and two weeks ago Ruffy and the
presence of God, or the gods, in their own lives. So if we are to grasp      Boudreaux family were in Rome for the beatification of Father Seelos.
why so many people hold fast to these stories, we have to know the tra-             Healing the sick is the basic form Christian miracles take. In the
dition in which the story unfolds and how miracles are understood in         Gospels, Jesus works miracles either to elicit faith or – more often – as
each faith.                                                                  a response to an individual’s faith in him. In John’s Gospel especially,
       Miracles are found in all the world religions. In ancient India, as   miracles are signs that in Jesus the long-awaited kingdom of God is
in the ancient Middle East, miracles functioned as both signs and won-       now present. By restoring the dead to life, Jesus is also restoring sinful
ders. As wonders, they incited awe; as signs, they always signified the      humankind to a new relationship with God – a mission that will be
presence of transcendent power. When the Buddha dazzled his kinfolk          completed only by his own death and resurrection. In sum, the healing
by rising in the air, dividing his body into pieces and then rejoining       miracles not only show the compassion of Jesus but also reveal what the
them, he signaled for all to see that he had achieved complete liberation    power and love of God are really like.
from the iron laws of karma. When the Prophet Muhammad produced                     Throughout the early Christian centuries, those who died for
water in the desert for his companions to drink, he demonstrated the         Christ were also revered as intercessors with god in heaven. Even
compassion of Allah the All-Merciful. And when Jesus raised Lazarus          through their relics, it was believed, these «friends of God» above could
from the dead, he signaled his power over death and foreshadowed his         be conduits for prayers from the faithful on earth. This belief in «the
own resurrection. He also echoed the miracles worked by the earlier          communion of the saints» is what lies behind the miracles required by

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