Pentecost Miracle at St John's
Church of Glastonbury
Towards the end of the main Sunday Eucharist on the Feast of Pentecost
1993, five members of the congregation seated in different parts
of the church began to 'speak in tongues'. This had never happened
before in the church and none of the individuals concerned were
familiar with this experience. As far as is known all were regular
members of the congregation. One of the men who 'spoke in tongues'
in particular was very disturbed and upset by the totally involuntary
nature of the experience. At the end of the service, each separately
and without any contact with the other speakers was asked to write
down the meaning of the words that had been 'placed in their mouths'.
In all respects, they were identical apart from slight errors
in spelling.
The text read as follows:
I AM equipping you,
I AM healing you,
I AM leading you, but
UNLESS you draw near to Me I cannot feed you.
UNLESS you come to Me, I cannot heal you.
UNLESS you empty yourself, I cannot fill you.
My people, there is still hardness in your hearts; hardness from anger, hardness caused by putting yourself in My rightful place.
REPENT of this hardness.
TURN to Me again and live.
COME that I may renew you in body, mind and spirit.
COME to Me that I may heal you.
COME to Me that I may equip you that I may send you out by the Power of My Spirit to RELEASE those bound by fear, to PROCLAIM forgiveness and to SHOW love to all people.
My children, I AM coming to you.
Nigeria ( 1988 )
Saint Mary's Catholic primary school, Aking in Akamkpa Local Government area of Cross River State (Nigeria) became a centre of attraction when the image of a man suspected to be Jesus Christ appeared on the wall of the school.
The picture of the man, clad in white garment with a lamb on the right hand side and a staff in his left hand appeared on the wall with light shining around the area, attracting various people to the scene.
Reports said the picture disappeared after 10 minutes but stayed for several hours on the wall on a second appearance. It was also gathered that after the second appearance the head of the man with a long beard appeared for a longer period.
According to the deputy headmaster of the school, Mr Bassey Itaya, the fingerprint of the man is still visible on the wall of elementary 3A classroom. Mr Itaya said that people from all walks of life thronged the school premises to have a glimpse of the mysterious picture on the wall which remained like a television screen throughout the scene.
The councillor representing the ward in Akamkpa Local Government, Mr Lawrence Effa, who was also present, described the incident as the first in the history of the area, saying that he was confused. He wondered what was the significance of the picture on the wall.
( Source: The Nigerian Chronicle, Cross River State, Nigeria, 3 October 1988 )
California, USA ( 1992 )
Images of Jesus Christ and the Virgin of Guadalupe have appeared in the window of a small apartment building in Long Beach, California. A steady stream of visitors now comes to the building to pray and pay homage to the images. Seventeen-year-old Guadalupe Orozco was among the first to notice something unusual in the window. "We were parking the car and one of my friends felt something telling him to look toward the window. That's when we noticed the image of Christ." Not everyone sees the images, but those who do have set up an altar of flowers and candles beneath the window. "We just want people to feel comfortable coming here and looking," says Carmelo Contreras, a building resident. ( Source: Press-Telegram )
Connecticut, USA ( 1993 )
Hundreds gathered around a sycamore tree in Wooster Square Park in New Haven, Connecticut (USA), where many saw the figure of Jesus crucified on the cross. Although many of the people who came were clearly convinced that they saw Jesus' form, the priests have declared it an optical illusion. Unless miracles of healing take place at the site, the church will not sanction the tree as an authentic manifestation of Jesus.
People's opinions varied on why Jesus would appear. "Because the world is in such terrible shape," "I think we've gone too far," "I think God's fed up." "The world is coming to an end." and "The world is entering a better time."
The image was discovered by a young mother who is simultaneously losing her sight and hearing. She was visiting her lawyer, who was helping her with some legal business. The lawyer suggested that he could complete the tedious work while the woman and her father took a stroll through the park. On their stroll the woman saw the unmistakable image of Jesus and asked her father to confirm it. They told the lawyer, but he didn't think anything of it.
A couple of days later, they dropped by the lawyer's office and left him a home video of the tree. "I tell you I literally leaped out of my chair!" the lawyer said. "There it was as plain as day ... I was completely flabbergasted." After he spread the word to people in the community, people flocked to the tree. While no healings appear to have taken place, many people say they feel great peace when they are there. (Source: Village Voice)
United Kingdom ( 1993 )
Colin Pepler is set to win £35,000 after placing a bet at a British bookmakers, William Hill, that the Second Coming will happen. For many months Colin sensed the nearing of this event, and arranged to place a £35 bet at 1,000-1. Some weeks later, whilst watching a football match, Colin experienced a "vivid dream" in which he knew the Second Coming had taken place. "It felt like somebody had planted the idea in my head ... and I knew that every eye will see Him," he said.
Colin then returned to William Hill's to demand his winnings, and was asked for confirmation of this event from the Archbishop of Canterbury, who replied in the negative. Colin vows: "I am not giving up. I saw the Second Coming so clearly in my mind". For readers' information, the odds have now dropped to 500-1. (Source: The Sun, UK)
Australia ( 1995 )
In December 1995, Julian Webb, an Australian wheat-farmer, witnessed the miraculous materialization of Christ's face on a hard slab of granite rock. The miracle took place at night when Mr Webb was walking on his farm near Beverly, 120 miles east of Perth. He saw a shaft of light illuminate the rock, and watched amazed as the face of Christ slowly appeared from nowhere.
Some days beforehand Mr Webb had heard a message coming from the area of the rock, saying: "Let I, the Lord, show you the way." Thinking he'd imagined it all, he took his son Adrian, 20, with him the next time. He felt sure "something profound was going to happen" to him -- and the miracle occurred.
Mr Webb, who rarely attends church, said: "I'm just an ordinary bloke who's experienced a miracle and people can take it or leave it." (Source: Daily Mail, UK)
Iran ( 1995 )
"It is reported in various parts of the city ( Teheran )
that an image of Jesus has been seen on fences or in windows.
People have gathered to witness it for themselves." So
writes the Iranian newspaper Akhbar in its 25 December
1995 edition. Reuters news agency quotes newspaper reports
of the face of Jesus appearing on the wall of a flat in the Iranian
capital of Teheran. The report also mentions the spontaneous
healing of a paralysed girl from a Christian family. Rumours
spread like wildfire within the city and hundreds of Iranian Christians
and Muslims alike flocked to the apartment building. An elderly
woman in a black chador claimed it had happened before and that
a Muslim man suffering from cancer had been healed on that occasion.
( Source: NRC Handelsblad, Holland )
Italy ( 1997 )
On 12 April 1997 a fire raged through Turin Cathedral destroying the 300-year-old Guarini Chapel which was built especially for the Sindone, the Shroud in which, tradition has it, the body of Jesus was buried. The Turin Shroud itself was saved from the blaze by a fireman who, as if in trance, cut through four layers of bullet-proof glass to rescue the silver box containing the Shroud.
Fireman Mario Trematore, whose hands were bleeding where the skin had been torn away by the strength of his grip, said afterwards: "God gave me the strength to break the glass." The Archbishop of Turin examining the rescued Shroud said: "It is intact. It is a miracle." Miraculously surviving this third fire in its mysterious existence without damage has only added to the prestige of the Shroud - especially since scientists from various fields of expertise have been finding increasing evidence to date the Shroud to around AD 30.
In 1988 four minuscule pieces of cloth were cut from the border of the Sindone for laboratory tests to determine its age once and for all. The carbon-dating method appeared to prove that the linen was made between AD 1260 and 1390. Soon after the publication of these findings, other scientists denounced the results of the tests. Because of two earlier fires the chemical structure of the cloth had been substantially altered. In the 6th or 7th century a monk dropped a piece of burning incense on the Shroud and in December 1532 a fire in the chapel of the Dukes of Savoy in Chambery, France, damaged the border of the Shroud. It was this part of the cloth that was used for the dating. But experts of the Sedov laboratory in Moscow simulated the fire of 1532 and studied the effects on cloth that was known to have been made in the 1st or 2nd century AD. They concluded that carbon-dating was useless for establishing the age of the Shroud.
The same conclusion was arrived at by two microbiologists from the University of Texas, although for different reasons. Leoncio Garza Valdes and Steve Mattingly discovered a very thin layer of bacteria and fungi around the pieces of cloth taken from the Shroud. Inevitably, this 'bio layer' had influenced the results of the carbon-dating method. Garza Valdes and Mattingly also discovered four types of bacteria in the fabric which are known to grow in a salty environment. The experts pointed out that in Palestine salt was used to bleach fabric and for the production of perfume and balm for the deceased. Towards the end of 1996 they finished their research, concluding: "We see no reason whatsoever why the Sindone could not be dated to the 1st century AD."
Better arguments came from traces of pollen of various types of flowers which can still be found growing around Jerusalem, and from other types which only grow in what is now Turkey. This would substantiate the tradition which holds that the Shroud was taken from Jerusalem to Turkey, where it surfaced around AD 1000 in Constantinople. But in February 1997, Shroud expert Professor Pier Luigi Baima Bollone found even more compelling evidence in the impression of an old coin, the lepton, on the eyes of the crucified man. Both coins were minted in Palestine in the year AD 29 under the authority of Pontius Pilate. This is consistent with the tradition then of placing a coin on the eyes of the deceased.
Although scientists are still at a loss as to the method by which a photographic image could have been transferred on to a piece of cloth in either the 1st or 14th century AD, all the recent findings proved to be sufficient evidence for the Archbishop of Turin, the official guardian of the Shroud by appointment of the Pope, to state explicitly for the first time: "I am convinced that the Sindone is the cloth in which the body of Jesus was wrapped after He died on the cross."
(Source: de Volkskrant, The Netherlands)