Point Made?

This is why people should not get over-excited about this kind of thing.
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Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

30 thoughts on “Point Made?”

  1. Sorry. For some reason, I can’t get the picture to come up in the main body of the post with this computer.
    Oh, well. You get the point.

  2. Right. I hate this stuff.
    Let me say it once again, in EVERY approved apparation of, say, Our Lady, she NEVER appears in some other medium. She’s alwasy her. At Fatima she was not speaking from within a grease spot on a manhole cover, at Lourdes she was not in acheese sandwich, at Guadalupe she was not in a reflection on the side of a house.

  3. Ed,
    You’ve disproved your own argument: at Guadalupe she left a miraculous image on Juan Diego’s tilma or robe. The image itself is recognized as having been instrumental in millions of conversions.
    Never say never …

  4. The Saddam photo could be made to look even more like the fire if I had bothered to Photoshop the image, as someone has done with the JPII image.
    It’s easy to see that it has been compressed downward (squashed). I mean, I know he was bent during his last several years, but his head wasn’t misshapen.

  7. Mark. No no no. Our Lady APPEARED in person and spoke to Juan Diego. She LATER left an image of herself in a tilma. Golly, Jesus did that with Veronica’s veil.

  8. OK Ed. So when you said “she NEVER appears in some other medium” you didn’t really mean it. By the way, is this universal rule in the catechism or canon law or somewhere? What about the pillar of fire in Exodus? Is God allowed to do that?

  9. Our difference, Mark is on the word “appear”.
    Neither the CCC nor the CIC make rules for Jesus and Mary.
    And refresh my memory, but I don’t think God appeared AS a flame, but rather was said to be “in” the flame/cloud, no?

  11. Mark,
    I also think Ed Peters means “never” based on empirical evidence thus far.
    I don’t think he’s trying to make an infallible declaration, though if he is, he should correct me.

  12. Let me say it once again, in EVERY approved apparation of, say, Our Lady, she NEVER appears in some other medium. She’s alwasy her. At Fatima she was not speaking from within a grease spot on a manhole cover, at Lourdes she was not in acheese sandwich, at Guadalupe she was not in a reflection on the side of a house.
    Crud!
    I should’ve known I was too late in mentioning these absurdities that Ed Peters just mentioned earlier.
    By the way, I have an image of the V.M. on my doughnut that I’m willing to sell on EBAY should anybody care for it.

  14. It’d better be custard, or I’m not buying it. Everyone knows Mary would never appear in Devil’s food.

  15. It is even more ridiculous when you consider that the figure of a person standing and waving is pretty universal. You can pretty much insert any person that ever lived that could stand and had arms and waved at somebody in some point in their lives.
    Reminds me of when anti-Catholics place a picture of a pagan image of some goddess and her child next to a picture of Mary and Baby Jesus and say: “See! See! Catholics are pagans!!”

  16. Leah,
    What kind of doughnut? Iced or with sprinkles or what?
    It’s a doughnut with her image on it —
    That, in itself, should be enough to entice any faithful buyer — even without sprinkles! ;^)
    David B,
    It’d better be custard, or I’m not buying it. Everyone knows Mary would never appear in Devil’s food.
    Thus, you are not one of the faithful! ;^)

  17. The Saddam says: FLAME ON!
    Now, far be it from me to pass judgment on the state of any man’s mortal soul. I do think, however, that this apparition of Saddam in the flames (“Flamer Saddam” as I call it) may be meant as a warning to political leaders who use their power to murder vast numbers of their own subjects.
    I think that these apparitions are becoming more and more common. It seems that not a week goes by without some attention-seeking loony perfectly ordinary person being visited by such an occurrence. Why, it was not the other day that I found a smudge on my wall that looked just like North America and Europe, which I quickly wiped-out along with the aid of a rag and some cleaning solvent. Prophetic? Maybe. From time to time the face of Yul Brynner has been known to mysteriously appear on my television screen. Does this mean that an army of malfunctioning, gun-slinging robots are soon going to overrun the Earth, destroying all (or at least most) humans? One can only hope, then there’ll be more PS3s for the rest of us non-humansThat would be horrible. Did you know that there was actually a guy who planned on selling grills that emblazon the images of saints onto the various food products one cooks on them? Imagine how many of these reports we’ll hear after THOSE abominations hit the market. I shudder to think!
    Anyway, great post Jimmy . . . uh, that is to say, Timmy (sorry, I could not resist).

  19. Great post, SDG. By the way, I can’t believe some guy named Tim has you confused with Jimmy. It’s so obvious from the writing style that it’s you.

  20. “From time to time the face of Yul Brynner has been known to mysteriously appear on my television screen. Does this mean that an army of malfunctioning, gun-slinging robots are soon going to overrun the Earth, destroying all (or at least most) humans?”
    WestWorld was like, the coolest movie EVER… when I was twelve.
    Actually, SECOND coolest. Omega Man was the coolest.

  21. When I was 4, I thought The Dukes of Hazzard was cool.
    I want to be
    As cool
    As Yul
    Before I’m dead.
    Therefore,
    I think
    I’ll shave
    My head.
    Dr. Eric

  22. “It is even more ridiculous when you consider that the figure of a person standing and waving is pretty universal. You can pretty much insert any person that ever lived that could stand and had arms and waved at somebody in some point in their lives.”
    Actually, if my memory serves correctly, there is a quite common photo of Ronald Reagan with the same posture and wave, stepping out of Airforce One I think.

  23. “Actually, SECOND coolest. Omega Man was the coolest.”
    Omega Man was cool, but not as cool as it could have been had they not gone all Hollywoodish in the adaptation from the book, “I am Legend”.

  25. I did an informal poll of Catholic friends and family regarding the alleged JPII image and found that those who were less positive about the idea of the image had become Catholic as adults, while all of the “cradle Catholics” (plus two converts) were much more receptive to the possibility. I wonder if this would bear out on this board. In any case, I found it interesting.

  27. “I’ll take the doughnut.
    It’s Holey!!
    (is 35 cents enough?)”
    No. any less than 50 cents, and I’ll outbid you, and sell tickets for people to come and see the Miraculous Appearance of a Surgically Altered Wombat.
    And that’s my final offer.

  28. Doh!!
    You can have it then. I’m going to Krispy Kreme’s and am gonna watch every donut come out of the donut machine till I find my OWN holy donut!
    ..and if there’s a St. Homer out there, I want to find one that looks like him!! And I’m even gonna check the DONUT HOLES!

  29. Does anyone rember the lady that had the Virgin Mary on a grilled cheez sandwich and saved it for like 25 years before selling it on e-bay? I was watching Miami Ink the other night and that woman came in with the sandwich to have it tattooed on her chest.(It must have been an old rerun I was watching b/c it was before she had sold it, and Kat VonD was doing the tattoo.)

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