New Zealand Conservative

This is a truly amazing and miraculous story. I recommend clicking on the link below to read more, as I've only teased you with the beginning of the post. After I finished Naval flight training and received my wings, I headed for Cherry Point, North Carolina. I had been selected for the AV8 Harrier and the jet’s six-month training program was based there. I was both nervous and excited, as the Harrier was the premier Marine Corps fighter jet. I was also honored in that the pilots selected for the program were generally steely-eyed veterans, the best in the Corps. However, until my tenure, the jet was considered too dangerous for new guys. The axiom among established Harrier pilots was it took a year before one could fly the jet without being scared spitless. If I remember correctly, my training class consisted of seven pilots: four experienced ones transitioning from other fleet jets and three nuggets recently out of flight school. It was a good group of men. Yet barely tw...

A friend of mine lent me this CD, Teenage Rebel to Catholic Priest , this week. I had heard it at a retreat I attended last month, and thought it would be great for my boys to listen to. So on Monday night, I played it and my older boy (he's 15) was interested enough to listen to the whole thing. The younger one (11) only lasted for half of it. It was the most amazing story of a boy who was heading for total self-destruction before he was miraculously rescued by Mary, the Mother of God. And then, coincidentally, though I don't actually believe that coincidences are random, a post turns up by the mother of the teenage rebel, and tells the story from her perspective: Modern Day St. Monica by LaChita Calloway . Well, what can I do but pass the story on!

Whanganui Hospital is trialling weird, faith based approach to healing. Christian prayer and traditional Maori healing are to be offered at Whanganui Hospital as part of a natural therapy service - but a sceptic says they could do more harm than good. Hospital staff will trial the service focused on spirituality and the healing and strengthening of the mind for three months before the district health board considers opening it up to patients. I say weird, because, I don't quite see how you could offer Christian prayer as a natural therapy service. Whanganui Hospital already has two chaplains, and a chapel where people can pray. Why put Christian prayer into a natural therapy service, why not just leave it with the chaplains and the chapel? Or, do they think by mixing Christianity in with the other stuff, they can somehow equate all of them? Reiki, massage and meditation will also be available, Maori health director Gilbert Taurua said. Reiki is incredibly dangerous, and...

Today in history, 94 years ago on October 13, 1917 a miracle occurred in Fatima, Portugal. Three shepherd children had said that the Lady from Heaven, who had been appearing to them that year, would perform a miracle on that day. So a huge multitude of people gathered in the rain waiting for the miracle to occur. They got more than they bargained for, as you can see in the dramatised clip below when the sun appears to fall on them. The Lady from Heaven was Our Lady of the Rosary and her message was that the war would end soon (WW1 ended a year later) and that the people had to stop offending God, who was already much offended. The rain stopped, the sun danced around, a number of people were healed from various ailments.

A Bishop, who was martyred in A.D. 305 for refusing to perform pagan worship has had his blood preserved in two glass vials. Normally they are just powdered blood, but three times a year they miraculously re-liquefy. When they don't, bad things happen such as plagues or earthquakes that kill many people. I'd never heard of this until now. It's pretty awesome. Read more here: San Gennaro miracle recurs ~ Sancte Pater

Miracles happen all the time, we just don't know about them, or forget about them once they are over.

This statue of Our Lady, The Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, has survived the fiery destruction of a mobile home park in Sylmar, California. Just looking at the photo made me wonder how common it is for statues of the Virgin Mary to survive fires. Wellington's Catholic Cathedral also has a quite large statue that survived a fire that destroyed the original building many years ago. The statue was located very high up on the outside of the building and apparently fell down to the ground during the fire without any damage to it whatsoever. Related Link: Worth a Thousand Words ~ The Deacon's Bench

Yet another miracle in a world where there are people that think miracles are only coincidences. Jerusalem, Jul 22, 2008 / 02:06 pm (CNA).- In the Jubilee Year of 2000, Pope John Paul II made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land stopping at one point to bless an olive tree on the Mount of the Beatitudes. A forester with the Jewish National Fund reports that this tree is the only one producing olives this year. "It is a miracle," Yossi Karni from the JNF, which maintains the plot, told local media. During a visit to northern Israel, in March of 2000, the late Pontiff blessed an olive tree that was planted on the Mount of Beatitudes, which was previously called Mt. Eremos. According to tradition, Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount on this mountain, which is located near the Sea of Galilee. Israel is currently facing what Uri Shani, Israel’s Water Authority director, called “the worst crisis in 80 years.” “Israel's major sources of drinking water, including the Sea of Galilee and t...