It is vain to look into that which God has hidden; for surely it is by no chance that we are left thus in the dark. Would not the hearts of mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, wives, children, husbands--who shall say where the divine madness of love will cease? For my part, I thank God he was silent. When I think of the pictures of heaven drawn from the attempt of prophecy to utter its visions in the poor forms of the glory of earth, I see it better that we should walk by faith, and not by a fancied sight. I judge that the region beyond is so different from ours, so comprising in one surpassing excellence all the goods of ours, that any attempt of the had-been-dead to describe it, would have resulted in the most wretched of misconceptions.
Such might please the lower conditions of Christian development--but so much the worse, for they could not fail to obstruct its further growth. It is well that St Luke is silent; or that the mother and the friends who stood by the bier, heard the words of the returning spirit only as the babble of a child from which they could draw no definite meaning, and to which they could respond only by caresses. One of the rulers of the synagogue at Capernaum falls at the feet of our Lord, saying his little daughter is at the point of death.
She was about twelve years of age. He begs the Lord to lay his hands on her that she may live. Our Lord goes with him, followed by many people. On his way to restore the child he is arrested by a touch. He makes no haste to outstrip death. We can imagine the impatience of the father when the Lord stood and asked who touched him. What did that matter? But the woman's heart and soul must not be passed by. The father with the only daughter must wait yet a little. The will of God cannot be outstripped.
Death has won the race! But Jesus, while he tried the faith of men, never tried it without feeding its strength. With the trial he always gives the way of escape. To arouse the higher, the hopeful, the trusting nature of a man; to cause him to look up into the unknown region of mysterious possibilities--the God so poorly known--is to do infinitely more for a man than to remove the pressure of the direst evil without it. I will go further: To arouse the hope that there may be a God with a heart like our own is more for the humanity in us than to produce the absolute conviction that there is a being who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and the fountains of waters.
Jesus is the express image of God's substance, and in him we know the heart of God. To nourish faith in himself was the best thing he could do for the man. We hear of no word from the ruler further. If he answered not our Lord in words, it is no wonder. The compressed lip and the uplifted eye would say more than any words to the heart of the Saviour. Now it would appear that he stopped the crowd and would let them go no farther.
They could not all see, and he did not wish them to see. It was not good for men to see too many miracles. They would feast their eyes, and then cease to wonder or think. The miracle, which would be all, and quite dissociated from religion, with many of them, would cease to be wonderful, would become a common thing with most. Yea, some would cease to believe that it had been.
They would say she did sleep after all--she was not dead. A wonder is a poor thing for faith after all; and the miracle could be only a wonder in the eyes of those who had not prayed for it, and could not give thanks for it; who did not feel that in it they were partakers of the love of God.
Jesus must have hated anything like display. God's greatest work has never been done in crowds, but in closets; and when it works out from thence, it is not upon crowds, but upon individuals. A crowd is not a divine thing. It is not a body. Its atoms are not members one of another. A crowd is a chaos over which the Spirit of God has yet to move, ere each retires to his place to begin his harmonious work, and unite with all the rest in the organized chorus of the human creation.
The crowd must be dispersed that the church may be formed. The relation of the crowd to the miracle is rightly reflected in what came to the friends of the house. To them, weeping and wailing greatly, after the Eastern fashion, he said when he entered, "Why make ye this ado, and weep? The damsel is not dead, but sleepeth. He put them all out. But what did our Lord mean by those words--"The damsel is not dead, but sleepeth"? Not certainly that, as we regard the difference between death and sleep, his words were to be taken literally; not that she was only in a state of coma or lethargy; not even that it was a case of suspended animation as in catalepsy; for the whole narrative evidently intends us to believe that she was dead after the fashion we call death.
That this was not to be dead after the fashion our Lord called death, is a blessed and lovely fact. Neither can it mean, that she was not dead as others, in that he was going to wake her so soon; for they did not know that, and therefore it could give no ground for the expostulation, "Why make ye this ado, and weep? Nor yet could it come only from the fact that to his eyes death and sleep were so alike, the one needing the power of God for awaking just as much as the other.
True they must be more alike in his eyes than even in the eyes of the many poets who have written of "Death and his brother Sleep;" but he sees the differences none the less clearly, and how they look to us, and his knowledge could be no reason for reproaching our ignorance. The explanation seems to me large and simple.
These people professed to believe in the resurrection of the dead, and did believe after some feeble fashion. They were not Sadducees, for they were the friends of a ruler of the synagogue. Our Lord did not bring the news of resurrection to the world: But as with the greater number even of Christians, although it was part of their creed, and had some influence upon their moral and spiritual condition, their practical faith in the resurrection of the body was a poor affair.
In the moment of loss and grief, they thought little about it. They lived then in the present almost alone; they were not saved by hope. The reproach therefore of our Lord was simply that they did not take from their own creed the consolation they ought. If the child was to be one day restored to them, then she was not dead as their tears and lamentations would imply. Any one of themselves who believed in God and the prophets, might have stood up and said--"Mourners, why make such ado?
The maid is not dead, but sleepeth. You shall again clasp her to your bosom. Hope, and fear not--only believe. But it may not at first appear how much grander the miracle itself appears in the light of this simple interpretation of the Master's words. The sequel stands in the same relation to the words as if--turning into the death-chamber, and bringing the maid out by the hand--he had said to them: The Lord brings his assurance, his knowledge of what we do not know, to feed our feeble faith. It is as if he told us that our notion of death is all wrong, that there is no such thing as we think it; that we should be nearer the truth if we denied it altogether, and gave to what we now call death the name of sleep, for it is but a passing appearance, and no right cause of such misery as we manifest in its presence.
I think it was from this word of our Lord, and from the same utterance in the case of Lazarus, that St Paul so often uses the word sleep for die and for death. Indeed the notion of death, as we feel it, seems to have vanished entirely from St Paul's mind--he speaks of things so in a continuity, not even referring to the change--not even saying before death or after death, as if death made no atom of difference in the progress of holy events, the divine history of the individual and of the race together.
In a word, when he raised the dead, the Son did neither more nor less nor other than the work of the Father--what he is always doing; he only made it manifest a little sooner to the eyes and hearts of men. But they to whom he spoke laughed him to scorn. They knew she was dead, and their unfaithfulness blinded their hearts to what he meant. They were unfit to behold the proof of what he had said. Such as they, in such mood, could gather from it no benefit. A faithful heart alone is capable of understanding the proof of the truest things.
It is faith towards God which alone can lay hold of any of his facts. There is a foregoing fitness. Therefore he put them all out.
Miracles of Our Lord by George MacDonald
But the father and mother, whose love and sorrow made them more easily persuaded of mighty things, more accessible to holy influences, and the three disciples, whose faith rendered them fit to behold otherwise dangerous wonders, he took with him into the chamber where the damsel lay--dead toward men--sleeping toward God. Dead as she was, she only slept. The raising of the dead and the feeding of the living are both and equally divine--therefore in utter harmony.
And we do not any more understand the power in the body which takes to itself that food, than we understand the power going out from Jesus to make this girl's body capable of again employing its ministrations. They are both of one and must be perfect in harmony, the one as much the outcome of law as the other. He charges the parents to be silent, it may be for his sake, who did not want to be made a mere wonder of, but more probably for their sakes, that the holy thing might not evaporate in speech, or be defiled with foolish talk and the glorification of self-importance in those for whom a mighty wonder had been done; but that in silence the seed might take root in their hearts and bring forth living fruit in humility, and uprightness, and faith.
And now for the wonderful story of Lazarus. In this miracle one might think the desire of Jesus for his friend's presence through his own coming trouble, might have had a share, were it not that we never find him working a miracle for himself. He knew the perfect will of the Father, and left all to him. Those who cannot know that will and do not care for it, have to fall into trouble that they may know God as the Saviour from their own doings--as the fountain of all their well-being.
This Jesus had not to learn, and therefore could need no miracle wrought for him. Even his resurrection was all for others. That miracle was wrought in, not for him. He knew Lazarus was dying. He abode where he was and let him die. For a hard and therefore precious lesson for sisters and friends lay in that death, and the more the love the more precious the lesson--the same that lies in every death; and the end the same for all who love--resurrection.
The raising of Lazarus is the type of the raising of all the dead. Of Lazarus, as of the daughter of Jairus, he said "he sleepeth; but I go that I may awake him out of sleep. Try to think not only what the disciples felt, but what Jesus was thinking; how he, who saw the other side, regarded the death he was about to destroy. But her faith was so weak that she took little comfort from the assurance.
She knew all about it. He spoke of the general far-off resurrection, which to her was a very little thing. It was true he should rise again; but what was that to the present consuming grief? A thousand years might be to God as one day, but to Martha the one day was a thousand years. It is only to him who entirely believes in God that the thousand years become one day also. For he that believes shares in the vision of him in whom he believes. It is through such faith that Jesus would help her--far beyond the present awful need. He seeks to raise her confidence in himself by the strongest assertions of the might that was in him.
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He has made assurance of pardon to sinners who are repentant. God asks of the sinner to be humble and to acknowledge his sins and to be sorry for them. We should not hesitate to seek the pardon and mercy of God: For His wrath shall come on a sudden. Thou wilt not despise. Be frank to admit your sins, and hide them not when you confess them and ask forgiveness for them:.
The apostles themselves understood and prescribed the measure to obtain pardon:. Our Lord Jesus Christ , after His resurrection appeared to the apostles and gave them and their successors the power to forgive sins:. She, wishing to know how many were the wounds that Christ Our Lord had received on His Most Sacred Body requested the Lord, with devotion to reveal them to her. The Lord appeared to her and said:. Wherever he may be, this prayer will keep him in peace and intact in the same manner that I kept the heavy waves of the sea. Any person, be it a man or a woman, who would have this prayer shall not die suddenly, shall not be persecuted by his or her enemies, nor shall they be conquered in battle, or imprisoned, or drowned in the sea, nor burned by fire or by lightnings; nor shall be deposed against by any false witness.
Any woman who is about to deliver and should hang this prayer on her neck, will deliver easily without danger. This prayer was brought over by Don Juan Cardoso from Rome.
It was found on the body of a man who was thrown into the sea with a big stone tied to his neck. This man remained floating in the sea without drowning. When he was rescued from the waves the prayer was found in his possession. Any one carrying it, must carry it with sincere faith, because God does not know how to fail in His promises. Every day, say the following:. Most Holy Virgin pray for me. You shall always be praised and blessed. Pray for this sinner to Your Beloved Son, Precious beauty of the Angels, the Prophets and patriarchs, Crown of the Martyrs, Apostles , and Confessors, Glory of the Seraphs, Crown of the Virgins, save me from the most fearful figure of the demon when my soul departs from my body.
Sovereign Virgin Mary , Mother of the Living God, because you have delivered Him, pray for all of us sinners so that He may pardon us, save us from the wicked enemy that is fighting us, and grant us the eternal glory.
Our Lord's Miracles
Why, earth would be almost heaven if all unkindness were eliminated from our lives….. These rules imply, of course, the opposite virtues of always thinking kindly of others, and of speaking kindly and of being kind to everyone. And all this, for the love of God. Now there is a penalty attached to every violation of the rules, a double penalty, which consist of: Of course, we shall all want to join. And how much happier we should all be for it — we, and all those with whom we come in contact. What must one do to join? No enrollment is needed. Come, ye blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world, for … whatsoever you did to the least of My brethren, ye did it unto Me.
Bernard once asked of the Lord which among his sacrifices and sufferings was greatest, most painful and least known. Do honor this wound in your prayers and I will give anything you ask through the merits of this same wound. And all who will venerate this wound will obtain from Me the remission of their sins, and I will no longer remember the mortal sins they have committed and already forgiven. Its weight tore Thy flesh and bared Thy shoulder bones, which cause Thee sufferings more than did Thy other wounds….
Vouchsafe to grant me, through the excessive pain and unmeasured weight of the cross to have mercy on me a sinner. Forgive me my mortal and venial sins, and guide me on to heaven through the way of the cross. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is sadness, joy. O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love; for it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Thank you for posting this miraculous prayer. I read this everyday and everytime i forget my Lord of pardon small booklet,, i just scan internet and i can already pray through this post of yours. Thank you so much for posting it. Thank you so much for sharing this lord of pardon prayer. Thank you for copying this from the original. The first time I read and prayed with the booklet was when I was 8 yrs old.
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All truth is God's truth. And much of this truth comes down to us through many hands. So by the time it reach us, we should not be surprised to find the fingerprints of the saints all over it. May we never forget, though, that this truth is a gift from God, not men. Apr 22, Aneta Jackowska-Musiol added it. Far from being a pat exposition of the gospels, MacDonald uses the Biblical accounts of miracles as a starting point for intense reflection of God's benevolence and the challenge of salvation an almost Kierkegaardian challenge, for MacDonald.
MacDonald doesn't shy away from controversy, either. He takes on Humean arguments against Miracles within the first few pages of the book, and throughout he addresses debates about science and religion -- and the strain that miracles put on the relationship between them. But MacDonald's elegant and poetic writing, combined with his typically sharp insight, is what makes this book worth reading.
Jan 18, Gretchen rated it it was amazing Shelves: MacDonald's unique perspective on the miracles of Christ make them more intimate, as well as dealing adequately with the theological issues in the background of the events. In particular, his treatment of the resurrection, the transfiguration, and Jesus' overall desire to make whole were remarkable. This is a must read for any MacDonald fan; I would also recommend this to anyone who had questions about the validity of the miracle accounts in the Gospels, as the insights in this book are honest a MacDonald's unique perspective on the miracles of Christ make them more intimate, as well as dealing adequately with the theological issues in the background of the events.
This is a must read for any MacDonald fan; I would also recommend this to anyone who had questions about the validity of the miracle accounts in the Gospels, as the insights in this book are honest and full of detail. Jul 25, Renee Wolcott rated it it was amazing Shelves: I have never been one for much theological study, but George MacDonald sums up what I believe to be the nature of God: Jun 09, John Sheehan rated it really liked it.
Dec 20, Sid Frost rated it really liked it. This was difficult to read because of its age, but I loved the content and the way it was organized. We used it for a Sunday School lesson and found it quite useful. Steve rated it it was amazing Dec 25, Dan Macdonald rated it it was amazing Jul 23, Stephen Keck rated it it was amazing Mar 01, K rated it liked it May 24, Presby rated it it was amazing Aug 14, Christopher rated it it was amazing Jun 26, Benjamin Heisholt rated it it was amazing Jun 10, David G Rice rated it really liked it Jan 05, Brett rated it it was amazing Jan 05, Clay and Rachel rated it it was amazing Aug 06, Iggy rated it it was amazing Apr 29,