{"id":69,"date":"2012-02-29T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2012-02-28T14:01:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2018-05-22T21:35:52","modified_gmt":"2018-05-22T11:35:52","slug":"those-who-have-eyes-to-see","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/2012\/02\/those-who-have-eyes-to-see\/","title":{"rendered":"Those who have eyes to see"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reading about Fatima<\/a>, I noticed a theme that recurred in various descriptions of the miracle of the sun.<\/p>\n

O Seculo (a pro-government, anti-clerical, Lisbon paper):<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

From the road, where the vehicles were parked and where hundreds of people who had not dared to brave the mud were congregated, one could see the immense multitude turn toward the sun, which appeared free from clouds and in its zenith. It looked like a plaque of dull silver, and it was possible to look at it without the least discomfort<\/i>. It might have been an eclipse which was taking place.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

O Dia (another Lisbon daily, edition of 17 October 1917):<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“At one o’clock in the afternoon, midday by the sun, the rain stopped. The sky, pearly grey in colour, illuminated the vast arid landscape with a strange light. The sun had a transparent gauzy veil so that the eyes could easily be fixed upon it<\/i>. The grey mother-of-pearl tone turned into a sheet of silver which broke up as the clouds were torn apart and the silver sun, enveloped in the same gauzy grey light, was seen to whirl and turn in the circle of broken clouds.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ti Marto (father of Jacinta and Francisco)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We looked easily at the sun, which for some reason did not blind us<\/i>. It seemed to flicker on and off, first one way, then another. It cast its rays in many directions and painted everything in different colors— the trees, the people, the air and the ground. But what was most extraordinary, I thought, was that the sun did not hurt our eyes<\/i>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Dr. Almeida Garrett, PhD (Coimbra University):<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It must have been nearly two o’clock by the legal time, and about midday by the sun. The sun, a few moments before, had broken through the thick layer of clouds which hid it, and shone clearly and intensely. I veered to the magnet which seemed to be drawing all eyes, and saw it as a disc with a clean-cut rim, luminous and shining, but which did not hurt the eyes<\/i>. I do not agree with the comparison which I have heard made in Fatima—that of a dull silver disc. It was a clearer, richer, brighter colour, having something of the luster of a pearl. It did not in the least resemble the moon on a clear night because one saw it and felt it to be a living body. It was not spheric like the moon, nor did it have the same colour, tone, or shading. It looked like a glazed wheel made of mother-of-pearl. It could not be confused, either, with the sun seen through fog (for there was no fog at the time), because it was not opaque, diffused or veiled. In Fatima it gave light and heat and appeared clear-cut with a well-defined rim…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It was a remarkable fact that one could fix one’s eyes on this brazier of heat and light without any pain in the eyes or blinding of the retina<\/i>. The phenomenon, except for two interruptions when the sun seemed to send out rays of refulgent heat which obliged us to look away, must have lasted about ten minutes<\/i>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Similar experiences are common at Medjugorje, as I discovered when I made my own pilgrimage<\/a> there. This impressed itself on me most powerfully not through my own experiences of phenomena of the sun (I had none) but through standing beside a couple of young blokes from Adelaide as they observed them. All of these instances are testimony to the cracks in the foundations of a purely materialistic worldview. They are evidence that flatly contradicts materialism’s alibi. The challenge is to draw all such strands of evidence together to bind up this strong man.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reading about Fatima, I noticed a theme that recurred in various descriptions of the miracle of the sun. O Seculo (a pro-government, anti-clerical, Lisbon paper): From the road, where the vehicles were parked and where hundreds of people who had not dared to brave the mud were congregated, one could see the immense multitude turn … Continue reading “Those who have eyes to see”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8SCfl-17","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1250,"url":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/2025\/06\/on-the-peculiar-difficulty-of-the-ascension\/","url_meta":{"origin":69,"position":0},"title":"On the Peculiar Difficulty of the\u00a0Ascension","author":"Me","date":"Mon 2nd Jun '25","format":false,"excerpt":"First published at The Orthosphere on 23rd August 2022, and not republished here by an oversight. I I had a lot of trouble with the Ascension. Every time I recite the Rosary, to take the most frequent example, I start with a declaration of belief\u2014The Apostles\u2019 Creed. In saying the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Belief & knowledge"","block_context":{"text":"Belief & knowledge","link":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/category\/belief\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":96,"url":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/2008\/01\/a-visit-to-medjugorje\/","url_meta":{"origin":69,"position":1},"title":"A visit to Medjugorje","author":"pbw","date":"Wed 30th Jan '08","format":false,"excerpt":"In the autumn of 1996 I took a ferry from Ancona across the Adriatic to Split. There was a reasonable swell, into which we heaved through the night. I slept little in the \"aircraft style\" seats, keeping an eye on my knapsack, in which all of my travelling possessions, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Faith"","block_context":{"text":"Faith","link":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/category\/belief\/faith\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":70,"url":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/2012\/02\/dawkins-v-fatima\/","url_meta":{"origin":69,"position":2},"title":"Dawkins v. Fatima","author":"pbw","date":"Mon 27th Feb '12","format":false,"excerpt":"In my previous post, I quoted from Dawkins' Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder, as follows. It is the 70,000 witnesses that impress. Could 70,000 people simultaneously be victims of the same hallucination? Could 70,000 people collude in the same lie? 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