The Great Solar Miracle. Fatima October 13, 1917
Part Four:
Philip Trower expresses similar view of it
by
Damien F. Mackey
“What, of course, the clerics in question did not
consider was the possibility that
God had worked a miracle with physical appearances
rather than physical bodies”.
Philip Trower
Philip Trower’s argument here is along lines similar to
what I wrote in Part Two of this
series:
There I wrote:
For those present that day [13th
October, 1917 at Fatima] -
“And there has never been a day like it
before or since …” (Joshua 10:14)
- the Sun appeared to do what it does not normally
do, and, moreover, “the people could look directly at it”.
Since God, who provided us with Nature and the
Cosmos, both heralded, and then performed, this terrifying event, might it not
offer clues for us when attempting to make sense, too, of the Joshuan miracle
of the sun that He also performed?
Did Joshua and his men really observe a miraculous
intervention by God that, as in the case of Fatima, did not in any way affect
the cosmological order, nor was seen elsewhere in the world?
A miraculous provision of extra light to the
advantage of the fighting Israelites by the God who created light (Genesis
1:3).
….
Recall the Fatima miracle again, with its
wonderful abundance of light: “Great shafts of coloured light flared out from
its centre in all directions, colouring in a most fantastic manner the clouds,
trees, rocks, earth, and even the clothes and faces of the people gathered
there …. it resumed a second time its incredible motion, throwing out its light
and colour like a huge display of fireworks”.
Whilst the extra light on the Joshuan
occasion had enabled the Israelites to complete their victory, the light and “a
heat increasingly intense” at Fatima served the more benign purpose of drying
the sodden crowd.
If this is the explanation, then biblical
enthusiasts may be wasting their time looking for ancient records of a long day
in China, or Peru, or wherever. Or from supposed evidence from NASA, or other
quasi-scientific theories
Some adopt the
position that God stopped the entire solar system. They make Joshua's day 23
hours and 20 minutes. The other 40 minutes are said to be found in 2 Kings
20:8-11, where the sun went ten degrees backward for a sign to Hezekiah that
his life would be extended. Alternately, it has been suggested that
prolonged light resulted from (1) the slowing of the earth's rotation so that
one day is missing in the earth's astronomical calendar; or (2) the temporary
tilting of the earth's axis.4 Some adopt the position that God
blacked out the sun rather than continued its shining by appealing to a
particular translation, e.g., The Berkeley Version translates it, "O Sun,
wait in Gibeon", and in the American Standard Version the marginal reading
is, "Sun, be silent."
….
Or whether or not the Joshuan text is evidence
needed to support Geocentrism.
[End of quotes]
Philip Trower has written:
My purpose in writing this
article is to show how a knowledge of the Church’s ascetical theology and
history can throw light on or help to resolve problems in Holy Scripture. I am
giving two examples, one based on an incident in the New Testament, the other
taken from the Old. Ascetical theology is defined in the dictionary I mostly
use as the “science of the saints based on the study of their lives,” and that
includes supernatural phenomena.
The two incidents I am using are the conversion of St. Paul on the road to Damascus and the passage in the Book of Joshua where God extends the length of the day by keeping the sun from setting so that Joshua can win a battle.
There are three accounts of
St. Paul’s conversion in the Acts of the Apostles. In the first St. Luke is
describing the event, which he must often have heard from St. Paul’s own lips,
where it naturally comes in the course of his narrative. Here he tells us that
suddenly a light from Heaven flashed about St. Paul and that “he fell to the
ground and heard a voice.” Then he says that St. Paul’s companions stood
speechless, “hearing the voice but seeing no one” (Acts 9:3-7).
In the second account St.
Luke quotes St. Paul directly. St. Paul, who has just completed his third
missionary journey, is addressing the rioting Jews outside the Roman barracks
in Jerusalem. After being arrested in the Temple, he has been telling them the
story of his life and conversion. This time he says that his companions “saw a
light but did not hear the voice” (Acts 22:6-9).
In the third account a year
to a year and a half later (Acts 26:12-15), St. Paul, still a prisoner, is
describing the event to King Agrippa in Caesarea while waiting to be sent to
Rome. This time he says nothing about what his companions did or didn’t see.
How then are we to explain the disparity between the first two accounts: one saying the companions did hear a voice, the second saying they didn’t? Is this a case of Scripture contradicting itself, or St. Paul making a mistake and forgetting what had happened in one of them? It would surely be expecting too much to imagine there had never been any Scripture scholar to have drawn such a conclusion.
How then are we to explain the disparity between the first two accounts: one saying the companions did hear a voice, the second saying they didn’t? Is this a case of Scripture contradicting itself, or St. Paul making a mistake and forgetting what had happened in one of them? It would surely be expecting too much to imagine there had never been any Scripture scholar to have drawn such a conclusion.
However, a little
reflection reveals that it need not necessarily be so.
St. Paul’s companions were employees of the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem and therefore, when the incident occurred, not sympathetic to Christians. Indeed, together with St Paul they were on their way to arrest some of them. However, in the light of what happened, and they experienced, it is surely not impossible or even unlikely that one or more of them subsequently became Christians themselves, whom St. Luke was able to question. Here is the relevant passage from the account to King Agrippa.
“At midday, O King, I saw on the way a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining round me and those who journeyed with me. And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’. . . And I said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And the Lord said; ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting’.”
This, surely, is an experience St. Paul’s companions were not easily going to forget or would leave little or no impression on them. Suddenly a light brighter than the sun shining all around them, then being thrown off their horses onto the ground and finally hearing, or some of them hearing, a mysterious voice claiming to be the very Jesus whose followers they were about to arrest.
St. Paul’s companions were employees of the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem and therefore, when the incident occurred, not sympathetic to Christians. Indeed, together with St Paul they were on their way to arrest some of them. However, in the light of what happened, and they experienced, it is surely not impossible or even unlikely that one or more of them subsequently became Christians themselves, whom St. Luke was able to question. Here is the relevant passage from the account to King Agrippa.
“At midday, O King, I saw on the way a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining round me and those who journeyed with me. And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’. . . And I said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And the Lord said; ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting’.”
This, surely, is an experience St. Paul’s companions were not easily going to forget or would leave little or no impression on them. Suddenly a light brighter than the sun shining all around them, then being thrown off their horses onto the ground and finally hearing, or some of them hearing, a mysterious voice claiming to be the very Jesus whose followers they were about to arrest.
Moreover, unless some of
them later became Christians, how could anyone have known what they saw, heard,
or felt at the time? St. Paul wasn’t in a condition or state of mind to
question them, and since no further reference is made to them, they presumably
returned to Jerusalem, leaving St. Paul in the “house of Judas,” where, so we
are told, he was initially taken.
Assuming then that some of
the companions did later become Christians, it also seems to me more than
likely that St. Luke, being the natural historian he was, while relying mainly
on St. Paul, would have contacted them so as to question them about their
experience too.
Which brings us back to the question of whether or not they heard the voice. Here, it seems to me, we can explain the apparent contradiction by the fact that some did and some didn’t.
Which brings us back to the question of whether or not they heard the voice. Here, it seems to me, we can explain the apparent contradiction by the fact that some did and some didn’t.
It is a well recognized
fact in the lives of saints that when supernatural phenomena occur which are
witnessed by more than one person, some are often privileged to see or hear
more than others. We can cite numerous instances in the life of Padre Pio when
he was seen in two places at once (the phenomenon known as bilocation). But not
everyone present always saw him in the second of the two places. Similarly at
Fatima. The two younger children did not always see or hear as much as Lucia,
the eldest.
II
My second episode also has
to do with a supposed error in Holy Scripture, but one greater in size and with
more far-reaching implications.
I refer to the passage in
the Book of Joshua where God extends the day by keeping the sun from setting so
that Joshua has time to finish a battle. Here is the text.
“Then spoke Joshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord gave the Amorites over to the men of Israel; and he said in the sight of Israel, ‘Sun, stand thou still over Gibeon, and thou moon in the valley of Aijalon.’ And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed until the nation took vengeance on their enemies” (Joshua 10:12, 13) ….
“Then spoke Joshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord gave the Amorites over to the men of Israel; and he said in the sight of Israel, ‘Sun, stand thou still over Gibeon, and thou moon in the valley of Aijalon.’ And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed until the nation took vengeance on their enemies” (Joshua 10:12, 13) ….
Clearly down the ages, our
forebears, Jewish and Christian, would have seen this as a miracle. But
starting with Copernicus, the new heliocentric astronomy seemed to require a
miracle of such fantastic proportions as to make it seem highly unlikely. Not
only would the sun have had to be stopped in its tracks, so would all the
planets revolving round it, our Earth included. There was no evidence in
Scripture or anywhere else that God had ever worked a physical miracle on such
a staggeringly vast scale.
As a result, by the time
Galileo came along with his more sophisticated heliocentrism, his theories
seemed to involve a direct challenge to the Book of Joshua. For some at least
of the clerics involved in the Galileo case, this alone would have been enough
to make his theories worthy of condemnation.
What, of course, the
clerics in question did not consider was the possibility that God had worked a
miracle with physical appearances rather than physical bodies.
Is there any evidence that
God has ever done such a thing either before or afterward? Yes.
Where? At Fatima in
Portugal in October 1917.
Our Lady, you will
remember, had promised the three children she had been appearing to since May
1917 that before she finally left them, she would ask God to work a miracle of
sufficient proportions to convince everybody that what they had been telling
them was true.
The miracle was fixed for October 13 and not only Fatima locals witnessed it. A crowd of seventy thousand gathered to see what happened, mainly from Lisbon, journalists included. They were not all pious believers, and they had been waiting in the rain for several hours. At last at the time foretold, the sky cleared, the sun half emerged, and seeming to detach itself from the sky appeared to plunge toward the Earth.
There were shouts and shrieks and people threw themselves on the ground. Then the miracle was over, and the sun was back in its proper place — or, rather, it ceased to appear being out of its proper place. Meanwhile, in addition to giving the sign our Lady had promised the children, it had confirmed the veracity of the Book of Joshua, demonstrating at the same time that the new heliocentrism was no danger to it. God can and apparently will manipulate appearances without resorting to mass hallucination, though needless to say there were people who, against all the evidence, have resorted to that explanation of the Fatima miracle. ….
The miracle was fixed for October 13 and not only Fatima locals witnessed it. A crowd of seventy thousand gathered to see what happened, mainly from Lisbon, journalists included. They were not all pious believers, and they had been waiting in the rain for several hours. At last at the time foretold, the sky cleared, the sun half emerged, and seeming to detach itself from the sky appeared to plunge toward the Earth.
There were shouts and shrieks and people threw themselves on the ground. Then the miracle was over, and the sun was back in its proper place — or, rather, it ceased to appear being out of its proper place. Meanwhile, in addition to giving the sign our Lady had promised the children, it had confirmed the veracity of the Book of Joshua, demonstrating at the same time that the new heliocentrism was no danger to it. God can and apparently will manipulate appearances without resorting to mass hallucination, though needless to say there were people who, against all the evidence, have resorted to that explanation of the Fatima miracle. ….
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