"Miracles"
Hallelujah Chorus, the Roches ...
Still watching episodes of JAG and tonight's episode, Miracles, had an Irish Catholic priest, a postulator from the Vatican, as a character ... Fr. Harry O'Rourke (James Patrick Stuart). The episode told of a Marine on trial for trying to kill his wife, who claimed that he instead was able to save her because of a miracle, the intercession of an already beatified Chaplain - the postulator was there investigating whether a miracle had truly occurred. I remember being slightly shocked when I first saw this episode years ago because the priest character was a fan of The Roches and because he smoked ciggies like a fiend - I didn't know many priests back then :)
The priest was put on the stand at the trial and gave some interesting info about how miracles are investigated. The prosecutor was especially critical in his cross examination: his baby daughter had died not long before and he couldn't understand why a miracle would be vouchsafed to save the Marine's wife but not to save his own child (good question!). In the end, the Marine was found guilty, but the priest had decided anyway that the miracle was probably legit. Harm asked him if the Chaplain, then, was going to be made a saint. The priest replied that he should check back with him in about 100 years because that's how long such things take (a fact soon belied by the quicky canonization of JosemarĂa Escrivá ).
I don't really know where I stand on the subject of miracles. I do want to believe in them, I guess - no Jefferson bible for me - but I don't understand why, if miracles are indeed done, they only happen sometimes and only to some people.
An interesting aside: the actor who played the priest is the son of Chad of Chad and Jeremy ....
Still watching episodes of JAG and tonight's episode, Miracles, had an Irish Catholic priest, a postulator from the Vatican, as a character ... Fr. Harry O'Rourke (James Patrick Stuart). The episode told of a Marine on trial for trying to kill his wife, who claimed that he instead was able to save her because of a miracle, the intercession of an already beatified Chaplain - the postulator was there investigating whether a miracle had truly occurred. I remember being slightly shocked when I first saw this episode years ago because the priest character was a fan of The Roches and because he smoked ciggies like a fiend - I didn't know many priests back then :)
The priest was put on the stand at the trial and gave some interesting info about how miracles are investigated. The prosecutor was especially critical in his cross examination: his baby daughter had died not long before and he couldn't understand why a miracle would be vouchsafed to save the Marine's wife but not to save his own child (good question!). In the end, the Marine was found guilty, but the priest had decided anyway that the miracle was probably legit. Harm asked him if the Chaplain, then, was going to be made a saint. The priest replied that he should check back with him in about 100 years because that's how long such things take (a fact soon belied by the quicky canonization of JosemarĂa Escrivá ).
I don't really know where I stand on the subject of miracles. I do want to believe in them, I guess - no Jefferson bible for me - but I don't understand why, if miracles are indeed done, they only happen sometimes and only to some people.
An interesting aside: the actor who played the priest is the son of Chad of Chad and Jeremy ....
posted by crystal | 10:33 PM
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