AT a time when a yawn is the common worldly response to religious experience I was happily taken aback that Sr Annette Arnold was able to employ the word “awe” to the response of media to the current and unfolding story of Blessed Mary MacKillop (CL 17/1/10).
Certainly some media have responded differently by describing Mary as but another “… dead nun …”
One religious paper referred to the process of a search for a “canonisation miracle” as something that “…. strains credibility to the limit …”
The description of the humility of Kathleen Evans throughout the press conference and in all her dealings points to an underlying legitimacy and truth that is difficult to dismiss.
In this context it is relevant that scripture scholar and historian Bishop Tom Wright (The Challenge of Jesus, page 22) described Jesus’ “… remarkable works of healing-works today that all but the most sceptical are forced to regard as in principle historical …”.
He said “… Jesus soon became better known for healing … it was his remarkable healings, almost certainly, that won him a hearing …”
Bishop Wright concluded that the Resurrection of Jesus vindicated Him.
But it was “… in such a way that the present life of the Church is not about ‘soul-making’, the attempt to produce or train disembodied beings for a future embodied life.
It is about working with fully human beings who will be re-embodied at the last, after the model of the Messiah …”
He said this after he had explained why the resurrection of one person, within the course of present history, was not what first-century Jews expected.
This is the significance of a miracle granted in response to prayers that reflect a devotion to Blessed Mary MacKillop as a disciple of Jesus.
They are not just “canonisation miracles”. They represent the mystery that is our journey to meeting God face to face.
My own mother will never be canonised despite producing 14 children in 23 years and then rearing them in circumstances that, we who know in faith, are nothing short of saintliness lived in complete ordinariness.
We all thank God for moving as He has in the life of Kathleen Evans.
But if any journalist expects faith on that event alone then they would be sadly mistaken.
The Church likewise proclaims a more credible Gospel.
VINCE HODGE
Paddington, Qld
