Jacalyn Duffin

"[In the face of medical miracles] medical scientists are not prepared to attribute the unknown to God . . . their discomfort also arises from a kind of faith - the absolute belief in the nontranscendence of earthly events. Like those who believe in God, they believe in the existence of a natural explanation, as yet unknown but open for discovery . . . But as Mark Corner wrote, 'there can be no certainty (since we obviously cannot anticipate what medical science will know in a century's time) that a miracle has taken place. At the same time, however, there is no certainty that a miracle has not taken place.' . . . only another form of belief sustains that interpretation" (page 189).

Behind every canonized saint in the Catholic Church (excepting martyrs) there are at least two medical miracles attributed to the prayers of the saint. This book is about the exhaustive investigations conducted by Church officials into medical miracles for canonizations of the last four hundred years.

I had two strong experiences while reading the book. (1) Wonder - My word! Miracles appear page after page with brief and end noted explanations. I had the eerie feeling that miraculous healings from the intercessions of saints were much more common than I previously thought. (2) Frustration - each miracle briefly mentioned beggars further explanation. I want to know more of the story for each miracle. However, this book is content to look over the whole breadth of 400 years of medical miracles rather than telling the personal stories of those affected.

This book is a wondrous, thought provoking read into the rather unknown scholarly world of the medical miracles associated with the canonization of Catholic saints.… (mehr)