Double blind tests, a test testing
best premises, promises state
Of recipient’s fervor after
Ingesting a Real Host or rather
A placebo - placed to gather
What is sacred - tad sacrilege
In practice - the inward signs of grace
The internal dispositions.
For forty fixed days of testing,
A fatal flaw midst the tested,
Missed the freedom to correspond
With worthy, chaste, pure, and lovely hearts,
Just and holy, a clean conscience.
Of such, unknown but to just One.
Can confinement effect the free?
The monk’s cell, the inmate’s prison cage?
Both are bound but both are free,
These and those who receive worthily.
But some are bound and not at all free
This we are certain with certainty.
Yet among the proofs, the best, the saints:
With lives of sin and near misses,
New beginnings, they begin and begin
Again, their gain their sanctity.
Gary Edward Geraci
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Author:
Gary Edward Geraci (
Offline) - Published: June 27th, 2020 12:53
- Comment from author about the poem: My poem “Saints Defying Sickly Scientism” is inspired by a question (2020) Dr. Dave Anders answered on EWTN’s “Called to Communion with Dr. David Anders.” The caller wanted to know if a scientific study had ever been done to prove the efficacious qualities inherent in a real consecrated Host as held in faith by Catholics. The caller suggested that a study, lasting several months, could be conducted with two groups. One group would receive a consecrated Host during the study period while the other group would receive a non-consecrated host, a placebo, during the same study period. Neither group would know ‘in fact’ whether they were receiving a consecrated Host or a placebo. Dr. Anders responded that he had actually written a technical paper on this very topic (if you find the paper please send me the link), why it wouldn’t work, proceeded to point out the best proofs that we have that the Eucharist is the real Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, and assured the caller that Holy Communion as celebrated in the Catholic Mass is indeed the Eucharistic Sacrament that Christ himself instituted during the Last Supper and Passover meal shared with his disciples. “Scientism” being the error that all realities are reducible and/or quantifiable through the scientific method - “excessive belief in the power of scientific knowledge and techniques.” (Definition courtesy Oxford Languages)
- Category: Reflection
- Views: 35
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Comments2
I, as you (I assume here) are not against science in itself, but are against scientism.
I can't see how this test could be measured properly. It's a spiritual thing, not like giving people a pill to see if it affects their physical health or not.
I was about to be 'Protestant' again in a poem, though I don't insist on a denominational label. You and I differ on this, I know. though it's the same salvation for all.
Yes - professionally I work in the field of civil engineering and so good science drives a lot of our projects O. Indeed the conclusion was that the experiment could not be set up in a way that would be able to measure the internal dispositions of the recipients. I suppose that if I was drooling over my neighbors wife as I made my way up to the alter, the effects of the sacramental grace would be ‘lacking to non-existent’ versus going up with a heart burning in love for Christ. How do you study this? Dr Anders, by the way, received ALL of his formal training from a top notch Protestant college (although he later converted to Catholicism) .
Thanks Gary. Re Dr Anders - so did Cardinal Newman convert too. One church raged about him being canonised. But then again, then often get a hell-fire sermon: 'Repent, you wicked sinners'. The congregation there replies: 'Erm, we already have; what's next?'
And a joke I heard: The 10 Commandments wear read each Evensong. In an elderly congregation, a lady said 'What am I, a 90 year old, doing her beseeching the Lord to keep me from committing adultery?! And me neighbour hasn't got any oxen for me to covet'!
Did the caller wonder if anyone has studied how the paths of hurricanes are affected by prayer, or if the Christian armies won the Battle of Lepanto because they prayed harder than the Ottomans? I have a friend that is convinced the many experiments suggesting that prayer has little practical affect on healing the sick have all failed because he personally prays for the unprayed-for test subjects, thereby messing the whole thing up! Thanks for clearing this all up for us! (-:
Orchidee - 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Jarcher54 - although they defy empiricism - miracles, especially those resulting from prayer, have been observed and many have been documented over the years (the Fatima miracle of the sun comes to mind). While science is adequate for studying and replicating the physical properties (both the visible and invisible) of the natural world and universe it fails to do the same for the supernatural such as God, the angels, eternal life, love, beauty, etc. Here faith and reason (philosophy, theology, logic) have assisted mankind in knowing God better and to know that He indeed exists (eg Five Proofs of the Existence of God by Edward Feser)
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