Visions

During the centuries, a few have been chosen to show the miracle of faith. That unwavering faith has allowed many to be healed. People flock by the millions to these holy sites hoping for their own healing. More after the jump!

From Life Magazine Special - Strange But True: 100 of the World's Weirdest Wonders
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Integral to all religions is faith. The flock enjoys a system of belief: in their god, in their moral code, in what is being asked of them and what might be delivered. Sometimes, there is a belief in signs, symbols and miracles.

Life Magazine's special, Strange But True: 100 of the World's Weirdest Wonders has an article on how Christianity inspires, within it's believers, an abiding faith. A lot of people claim miracles happen. And not just coming from Christians either.

Here is an example from the article:

In the Pyrenean village of Lourdes in southwestern France, during a period extending from February 11 to July 16, 1858, a mysterious apparition is said to have appeared 18 times to 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous. At one point during the ninth vision, the figure revealed to Bernadette an under-ground spring and told her to drink from it. Not until her 16th visit did the lady reveal her identity: She was the Blessed Virgin Mary, and her message to Bernadette was,"Pray and do penance for the conversion of the world?"

So apparently Pope Pius IX in 1862 said this was a real occurrence for little Bernadette. Water is always used in religion as a way to cleanse like baptisms, or to have miraculous properties.

So Lourdes then became

...one of the world's principal centers of pilgrimage. At least two paralyzed men, Gabriel Gargam in 1899 and John Traynor in 1923, were said to have been completely healed by immersion in the holy water of Lourdes.

In 1917, in Fatima, Portugal, The Virgin is said to have appeared in another European village.  Three kids said they saw her.

The article covers another pilgrimage site to the royal chapel of the Cathedral of San Giovanni Battista, in Turin, Italy, which as you probably know, is the home of the Holy Shroud: a 14-foot-3-inch-long piece of cloth that allegedly bears the bloodstains and body of a crucified man, hence Jesus Christ.

Was this cloth once draped over the crucified Christ? That question has been asked for more than six centuries, ever since the Shroud emerged in France in 1389. Upon being displayed publicly, it was denounced by the bishop of Troyes as a "cunningly painted" fake.

The magazine goes on to say that the The Roman Catholic Church has been very careful in how it describes the Shroud. It has been respectful of what the image says about the suffering and sacrifice of Jesus, but when radio-carbon dating suggested that the linen might be inauthentic, dating only to the Middle Ages, the Church accepted the evidence. Makes you wonder if it knows the truth or not on this beloved piece of religious history.


In 2013 a study was done and said the Holy Shroud could not have been hoaxed during the Middle Ages. I guess it all goes down to what you believe.

From Life Magazine Special - Strange But True: 100 of the World's Weirdest Wonders
Purchase here!