Faith in Evidence

One of the mistakes that the world makes about Catholicism is that our Faith is a blind faith. In other words, they think that we believe what we believe in spite of the evidence. The whole purpose of those of us involved the field of Apologetics is to demonstrate the evidence for the faith as far as it’s possible to do so. There are “mysteries” to the faith that are beyond human comprehension and those we make a “leap of faith” from what we can prove to what we can’t.

We believe there is a God first because we see the evidence in His creation that requires an intelligent designer. This is what is called “the evidence in the stars” so to speak. Order and balance in the creation requires an intelligent designer just as your computer does. If there were not predictable laws governing the Universe, it would have been impossible for scientists to send man from Earth to the Moon or probes to the outer planets. But because we know that they are traveling at a set speed around the sun we know that they will be there when we arrive…even if it is months or years after launch.

Then we move from His existence to the most important question: “Can He be known? Has He revealed Himself?” To know this we look for the evidence that He has indeed made Himself known to humanity… that evidence we call “The Scriptures”. But how do we know that this is truly God revealing Himself to man and not the clever invention of a group of men? That is a whole series of articles I’ll write one of these days. Suffice it for our purposes right now to say that there is evidence that the Bible is divine and not human in origin.

Another evidence that we see is the result of God’s interaction with man. We see that in Sacred Tradition as well as the many times that God has allowed visitations with man…which brings us to the whole purpose of this article.

The Evidence in Results

We not only have the evidence of the effect in our own personal lives but also in the miracles which have occurred by God’s allowed visitations…especially those of the Blessed Mother. Rather it is in Lourdes or Fatima or any of the other officially recognized “Marian Apparitions” healings have always accompanied them. The water from the Grotto in Lourdes is one with which many are familiar.

Here in the Philippines we have several Shrines dedicated to Mama Mary. One that is very close to where we live is the “Shrine of Miraculous Mama Mary” at Simala on the island of Cebu. It is also very close to my heart as it played a role in my reversion to the Church. We made a trip over to the Shrine on April 2^nd and it was the first time I had been to the Shrine since 2012 on one of my visits back before Rose came to the States.

The Shrine is not as old as I thought and certainly not as old as the main Shrine looks. It was founded in the 1990’s by a group of Salesian monks to be a monastery called “The Monastery of the Holy Eucharist”. There was a simple shrine erected on the property dedicated to Mama Mary. But then divine intervention happened. On 4 different occasions in 1998 and one in 1999 the Image was seen to shed tears. It became a pilgrimage stop for many Catholics in the whole country and now people come from all over the world to visit and pray there. Now it is known by the name I called it above. There have been many changes there since our first visit.

As you walk into the Shrine itself the first thing you do is take off your shoes or sandals…socks are okay. Then you get into the line processing through the Shrine and as you do you pass by the case shown in the picture above. It’s one of several such and is filled with evidences and testimonies of the healings that have taken place there. More on this in a moment. Masses are held there every day as well a regularly scheduled Rosaries. There are special spots to stop and pray where you either kneel or stand before an image of the Blessed Mother covering yourself with a vail.

One thing that you note is the quiet. There were lots and lots of kids of all ages. None of them were running or shouting as kids tend to do. They processed through with their families in a very respectful manner. Also, I was wearing white socks and when we were ready to leave I looked at my socks. You could never have told that I ever removed my shoes…the place is that clean.

The Shrine’s Role in My Reversion

As an Evangelical Christian minister involved in Apologetics for all the years I was, one thing that used to bother me was all the charlatans and snake oil salesmen populating the airwaves in the U.S. (and really around the world) professing to be healing people yet when confronted on it by apologists such as Hank Hanegraaf of the Christian Research Institute to produce even a handful of verifiable cases they couldn’t do it. Yet here at this Shrine, I was confronted with not a handful but hundreds if not thousands of not just testified but verified healings … and this was just one Shrine of many. I remembered my childhood hearing of Lourdes and Fatima and the many, many healings that happened there. I began to question that if God was doing true miracles through one and the other was only claiming that He was what does that say about the Catholic Church versus Evangelical Christianity. It started me on the road to examining all the evidences that led me back home.

Conclusion

One day, as Saint Paul assures us, “we will know even as we are known” Then “faith” will no longer be necessary as it will be “sight”. Ours is not a blind faith but rather is a faith solidly anchored in evidence. That evidence allows us to move from what we can prove to the Mysteries of the Faith with confidence.

Here are some links to the pictures we took both in 2012 and 2016.