Is It a Miracle?

[blackdiamond]

http://www.kansas.com/196/story/861812.html

Here's a portion of the story:

COLWICH - "Chase survived in part because hundreds of people prayed to Father Emil Kapaun to intercede on his behalf. It was absolutely a miracle." — Paula Kear, Chase's mother

People in Colwich like to touch Chase Kear's arm or his shoulder with their fingers. Or they hug him. "Miracle Man," they say. "Let me touch the miracle." With anybody else in Colwich, this would be just talk. But it's not just talk to the Vatican.

Prompted in part by what the Kear family has said publicly, and partly by a preliminary investigation begun by the Catholic Diocese of Wichita, a Vatican investigator named Andrea Ambrosi will arrive from Italy in Wichita on Friday.

He will investigate on behalf of the church in Rome whether 20-year-old Chase Kear's survival qualifies as a miracle; whether he survived a severe head injury last year in part because his family and hundreds of friends successfully prayed thousands of prayers to the soul of Father Emil Kapaun, a U.S. Army chaplain from Pilsen, Kan., who died a hero in the Korean War.

Ambrosi, a lawyer by training, is coming here to thoroughly "and skeptically" investigate whether Chase's story is a miracle, said the Rev. John Hotze, the judicial vicar for the Wichita diocese. The church requires miracles to elevate a person to sainthood.

Hotze has investigated Kapaun's proposed sainthood for eight years, which is only a fraction of the time the church has been considering whether to elevate Kapaun to sainthood.

Soldiers came out of prisoner-of-war camps in 1953 with incredible stories about Kapaun's heroism and faith. Across Kansas, his memory is kept alive at Wichita's Kapaun Mount Carmel High School, in his hometown of Pilsen and elsewhere.

Kapaun is so well-known and so highly regarded by area Catholics that the diocese has received other reports of miracles involving Kapaun, Hotze said. Ambrosi on Friday will consult area physicians in at least three such cases, including Chase's, Hotze said.

Only two American-born people have ever been canonized as saints. For sainthood, the church will require at least one and possibly two miracles be proven on Kapaun's behalf, depending on whether he died a martyr, something the church is also trying to determine.

Among people that Ambrosi will consult on Friday will be Chase's neurosurgeon, Raymond Grundmeyer, who said in a brief e-mail last week that he considers Chase's survival a miracle.

If Ambrosi's report concurs, more church officials would still have to evaluate the case, but it would further a cause that Kapaun's fellow prisoners of war and Catholic Church officials have carried on for years: to persuade the church to declare Father Kapaun a saint.

"There is no doubt in anyone's mind in our family that Father Kapaun helped save our son," Paula Kear said of Chase, who is making a full recovery. "We were told at least three or four times in those first two days that Chase wasn't going to make it.

"Dr. Grundmeyer did a great job in saving him, but even he said he couldn't explain why he survived."

**********

Obviously there will be a lot of people on the board that simply don't believe in miracles or even a God and my intent isn't to really start that debate.  For those of us that believe in miracles, what do you think about this story?

[blackdiamond]

I missed an important part of the story:

The Kear family says Kapaun's role in Chase Kear's survival 57 years later began about two hours after their son was injured.

Chase, a member of the Hutchinson Community College track team, fell on his head during pole vaulting practice in October.

By the time a helicopter delivered him to Via Christi Regional Medical Center-St. Francis Campus, his family was already frantically praying as they watched the helicopter land.

Within an hour of that landing, Paula Kear's sister, Linda Wapelhorst, was asking a priest at St. Francis to perform the Catholic sacrament of anointing the sick, which used to be called last rites.

And she was calling Sacred Heart Church in Colwich, asking people there to get everyone in the church praying to Father Kapaun for help.

In the following days, Grundmeyer and others had told the family that Chase's skull had been cracked from ear to ear, that his brain was swelling, and that either the surgery to remove a skull piece or the infection that might follow would probably kill him.

Paula and Paul Kear and dozens of other people made regular trips to the chapel at St. Francis to pray, always with the Father Emil Kapaun prayer.

The Kapaun prayer had become a standard for parishioners in Colwich since a priest from the parish had come down with cancer several months before.

"Father Emil Kapaun gave glory to God by following his call to the priesthood and thus serving the people of Kansas and those in the military," the prayer says. "Father Kapaun, I ask you intercession not only for Chase Kear... but that I too may follow your example of service to God and my neighbor. For the gifts of courage in battle and perseverance of faith, we give you thanks oh Lord."

What happened next, Grundmeyer said last week, was "a miracle."

The family agrees. Only a few weeks after Chase broke his skull, he walked out of a rehabilitation hospital, shaken but alive.

His near-complete recovery stunned all the doctors involved, Paul and Paula Kear said.

"Chase survived in part because hundreds of people prayed to Father Emil Kapaun to intercede on his behalf," Paula Kear said.

"It was absolutely a miracle."

Chase himself says he has little memory of what happened. For interested visitors, he will calmly part his thick hair with his fingers and show the long semi-circular scar that traverses much of the right side of his scalp.

He's working a summer job and plans to coach the pole-vaulters at the Hutchinson Community College. He misses vaulting; he's grateful to Grundmeyer and Kapaun.

"So how does it feel to be a miracle?" his mother asked him last week.

"It feels pretty cool," he said.

************

[WHITE_TRASH]

An old boss of mine used to pray for everything at all times.  If she had a headache she'd pray to God to have it gone etc etc.  She refused to go to a doctor, God would take care of her...  She died last summer of a massive heart attack from high cholesterol.. Guess all of her praying helped a helluva lot.

[86rustbucket]

YUP

[79coyotefrg]

An old boss of mine used to pray for everything at all times.  If she had a headache she'd pray to God to have it gone etc etc.  She refused to go to a doctor, God would take care of her...  She died last summer of a massive heart attack from high cholesterol.. Guess all of her praying helped a helluva lot.

praying for a miracle or at least some help is one thing,  being too stupid to trust that God expects you to meet him halfway by going to a doctor is another

[79coyotefrg]

http://www.kansas.com/196/story/861812.html

Here's a portion of the story:


Obviously there will be a lot of people on the board that simply don't believe in miracles or even a God and my intent isn't to really start that debate.  For those of us that believe in miracles, what do you think about this story?

i have to admit i got a little confused reading it, but from what i understood it does indeed sound like a miracle

I for one am very religious, more so since my wreck considering the cops, and paramedics at the seen said i shouldn't be alive much less talking to them. 
I believe it was a miracle, or at least a guardian angel, perhaps one of the teenage girls that died at the same spot a few months earlier,  who knows. 

[blackdiamond]

I strongly disagree with several of the doctrines/beliefs that are related to this story, but setting those things aside, my immediate thought was this: Does the Bible provide a single example of a miracle where the person healed wasn't immediately healed?  When Christ, or one of his disciples/apostles, performed a miracle it always happened immediately and fully.  Considering this, why would this event be considered a miracle at a level to be attributed to a specific person?  Don't get me wrong, I believe that God did have a hand in this situation, but I don't see how the whole situation could be considered equal to the miracles performed in the Bible.  To be specific, I don't see the evidence to say that they guy should be elevated to a saint based on this situation.  I would have expected the prayer to result in an immediate and complete recovery as if the accident hadn't happened at all.

Make any sense?

[BigMike]

Praying to dead people is not Biblical. The devil also has the ability to not kill someone. So what if the devil decides to stop killing all of God's children (all/any human) then would we also say that everyone is a result of countless miracles? I don't think so.

[WHITE_TRASH]

Ahh so we need to pray to satan for eternal life... I guess I had it all wrong..

[ROKTOY829]

Miracles happen everyday  ( some small some big) they just get covered up by the world. It sounds like the boy healing from his head injury was a miracle. I'm I reading it right were they praying to a dead priest or to Jesus? Have to touch on what BigMike said about the devil killing people "this my own thoughts" the devil doesn't out right just kill people it's the sin that we committ that kills us. Satan is just there pushing. It's our choices that does it.

[blackdiamond]

Miracles happen everyday  ( some small some big) they just get covered up by the world. It sounds like the boy healing from his head injury was a miracle. I'm I reading it right were they praying to a dead priest or to Jesus? Have to touch on what BigMike said about the devil killing people "this my own thoughts" the devil doesn't out right just kill people it's the sin that we committ that kills us. Satan is just there pushing. It's our choices that does it.

I'll agree with this.  I believe that Satan's goal is to attract as many as possible, before his end, in an effort to keep us from experiencing eternal life.  The suffering in the world is simply a natural consequence of sin.

I've heard the question asked, "If the devil ceased to exist, would sin end?"

[kneedownnate]

Am I reading the posed question right, is it asking if you believe in miracles they must be god related?  I believe in miracles but don't follow any one religion or similar belief.  Can you only believe in miracles if you're religious? 

To me prayer seems to be little more than a placebo, an effort to either make yourself feel good or to look good in the eyes of your fellow church members.  Maybe it's just the religious equivelant to wishing someone well, but it just seems foolish to put any further stock into it 

[blackdiamond]

Am I reading the posed question right, is it asking if you believe in miracles they must be god related?  I believe in miracles but don't follow any one religion or similar belief.  Can you only believe in miracles if you're religious? 

To me prayer seems to be little more than a placebo, an effort to either make yourself feel good or to look good in the eyes of your fellow church members.  Maybe it's just the religious equivelant to wishing someone well, but it just seems foolish to put any further stock into it 

mir⋅a⋅cle
1.    an effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause.
2.    such an effect or event manifesting or considered as a work of God.
3.    a wonder; marvel.
4.    a wonderful or surpassing example of some quality: a miracle of modern acoustics.

I guess you can go with the third definition, but I think in general people think of the first two.  I would say that if God isn't involved it becomes either dumb luck or the works of science (i.e. medical science).

[blackdiamond]

Praying to dead people is not Biblical.

You are correct.  The Bible is very clear on this subject.

[BLACKDOG]

Am I reading the posed question right, is it asking if you believe in miracles they must be god related?  I believe in miracles but don't follow any one religion or similar belief.  Can you only believe in miracles if you're religious? 

To me prayer seems to be little more than a placebo, an effort to either make yourself feel good or to look good in the eyes of your fellow church members.  Maybe it's just the religious equivelant to wishing someone well, but it just seems foolish to put any further stock into it 

Prayer is intended to be a personal thing, between you and God.  Perhaps bd can help me with this, but there are verses in the Bible that talk about when you pray, to isolate yourself, partially to allow yourself to focus on God, and to be away from distractions, and partially so that you don't do it to look good in the eyes of your fellow church members.  For believers, prayer is direct communication to God (whichever God that person worships) or another entity. 

My personal hang up is praying to other people.  1) Bible says don't do it.  2)  regardless of how "good" a person was, s/he was still a sinful person.  The only one without sin is Jesus Christ.  I also think its strange that "sinful people"  (According to the Christian faith (using the term loosely), everyone is sinful, no one person is perfect other than Jesus), are the ones to determine whether a person reaches "sainthood."  Don't get me wrong, I fully believe in honoring people who sacrificed much, and performed great deeds (that ordinary humans are capable of) while they were alive, but worshipping them, no. 

[BigMike]

the devil doesn't out right just kill people it's the sin that we committ that kills us.

Make no mistake about it,

"And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ" - Revelation 12:17 KJV.

Look at what has been going on through out history. Inquisitions, wars, etcetera. And if you think it is limited to history, think again:

"Whoever denies or places in doubt any truth that must be believed with divine and catholic faith, or repudiates the Christian faith as a whole, and does not come to his senses after having been legitimately warned, is to be punished as a heretic" – Ad Tuendam Fidem, Can. 1436 § 1, July 15, 1998

The world is playing right out as the Bible has said it would.

[ROKTOY829]

I agree with you 100% on the world is playing out just like the bible is saying. Also it is getting worse everyday. This is my 2 cents. Depending on your believes Revelations was written describing the punsiment from GOD on the none believers that were left here on earth. That verse is for the ones that will not take the mark of the beast. But at that point in the game the world as we know will  no longer be here. When I said that the devil doesn't kill people I was talking as in life as we know it now. His ablitily to make us sin is what kills us Only when we let it. Thats my thinking on it.

[BigMike]

I understand this is for a different topic, but I would like to kindly debate your point.

If the mark of the beast (which I am fully convinced is Sunday worship) is not an issue for life as we know it now, then why are we judged on this before His 2nd coming?

My previous question won't make sense if you believe in a rapture or if you believe that you go to heaven or hell immediately when you die (Hell as a physical location somewhere is NOT Biblical.) But that is not possible since the dead in Christ shall be raised at His 2nd coming. See 1 Thess 4:16.

(side note: Remember Heaven is a place of no sadness, no tears, no crying, no pain: See Rev 21:4. How can we go straight to Heaven after we die and be "looking down on this place" full of sin and suffering? I don't want to go to Heaven only to be watching my wife slowly die of cancer, that would NOT be Heaven to me. That is not the Love of God.)

[ROKTOY829]

To believe in the mark of the beast is to believe in the rapture theory agree or disagree?  Myself I am torn on that theory. But I lean that way. One thing is for sure only God knows when and how. We will be judge for or actions and choices. If the rapture theory is correct the ones that are here for the 7 years of tribulation and choose to take the mark of the beast there judgement will be far worse then a believers. We all will be judged cause we are all sinners. I sin everyday but because I BELIEVE that Jesus is the way to the father I will be forgiven IF I ASK for it. Don't get me wrong I do believe that Satan is influencing things on earth. He is doing it by tricking us. I don't think if I died right now I would go straight to Heaven I think we will all go at once I . I will go when he gets ready to call me on home. But It seems to me that when you say we die we are dead. Are you just saying that as the physical body or what? Cause we never die this body is only for a short time. On your side note something I CAN'T figure out is in Matt. chapter 25 Jesus is asked about who will a wife belong to if she remarried after her husbands death. Jesus said that she will be no mans wife cause in heaven we will all be spiritual beings. That makes we wonder if he has done that so we will not have pain in suffer in heaven due to not all are friends and family will make it. Kinda like or memorys of earth and home will be wiped cleaned. Again I Fill free to pm me if you would like to if you don't follow me.

[BigMike]

ROKTOY829,

If you have time, please watch this video regarding what I believe the Bible teaches regarding Jesus' 2nd coming:
History'sComing Climax

The coming of Christ at the end of the age has been prophesied in the Bible and for centuries people have been awaiting this great event. What the Bible really teaches about Jesus Christ's second coming is compared to the broad array of teachings in the world. The secret rapture and what will happen to the dead when Jesus Christ returns are presented.

I highly recommend you to watch the whole video (there are 35 other videos in this series), but if you don't have time at all, then skip forward to 33:10 where the speaker discusses the secret rapture.

Other HIGHLY interesting related videos are:
The Mystic Realm of Death

Where do the dead go? What does the Bible teach on this issue? Is there a hell? Seven heavens? Life after death? Reincarnation? Are there ghosts? Does the Bible have anything to say about spiritism? Discover the true teachings of the Bible on this often misunderstood topic.

The Battle of the Giants

The great controversy between Christ and Satan throughout the ages as described in the book of Revelation, chapter 12, is presented. The previous persecution of Bible believers as well as the final conflict is revealed in this video.

Changing the world

In this video a hands on approach of the Bible is followed, exposing the blatant changes that have been made in modern translations to rob Christ of His pre-eminence. See for yourselves and prove whether these things are so.

and if you want to get a great understanding of Revelation and end time deceptions, then watch these in order:

The Revelation Of Jesus Christ

The Book of Revelation and its Author is introduced. It is a verse by verse exposition of Revelation chapter 1 highlighting the deity of Christ, the method of interpretation and the great battle between good and evil. It takes us back to the time of ancient cultures right up to the present showing that apostasy towards the truth in the past finds its mirror image in the present.

Seven Churches

A look at the prophetic interpretation of the seven churches of Revelation chapters 2 & 3. In this video, we are taken on a sweep through the history of the Christian church, from the time of Christ through a time of spiritual declension and apostasy, a time of compromise to a time of gospel restoration.

Seven Seals

An expose of Revelation chapters 4 to 7 exposing the battle surrounding the gospel herald. It is a fascinating tale of the war between light and darkness, which culminates in the final onslaught on salvation in Christ alone. It reveals the good news that there will be a people standing on the platform of truth who will not submit to compromise.

When Trumpets Sound

The trumpets have always been a bone of theological contention. In this study, the various interpretations are compared using Biblical exegesis based on the structure of the book of Revelation and startling evidence is brought to view regarding the trumpets. Trumpets in the Bible are heralds of judgment and it is within this context that we seek the meaning of the trumpets of Revelation.

The Beast From The Bottomless Pit

An expose of Revelation chapter 11, which is one of the pivotal chapters, relating to the conflict between light and darkness. In the trumpets, the bottomless pit was opened and smoke emanated from its depth, typifying the false doctrines, which threaten to rob the world of light. In Revelation ch 11 a beast arises out of the bottomless pit suggesting that form and structure have been added to a gospel of falsehood. A detailed look at the French Revolution and its philosophy as it pertains to the setting up of the new world order.

After I watched all those on the book of Revelation, man everything I had heard in church *finally* clicked in my brain. These videos are a real eye opener Let me know what you think