美国国家公共电台 NPR How The Catholic Church Documented Mother Teresa's 2 Miracles

How The Catholic Church Documented Mother Teresa's 2 Miracles 

play pause stop mute unmute max volume 00:0005:18repeat repeat off Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser¹ to a recent version or update your Flash plugin. STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: 

On Sunday, Pope Francis will declare Mother Teresa a saint. That's the end of a process that began back in 2003. The Vatican spent more than a decade examining her qualifications. To be a saint, you must be associated with two verified miracles, and that process offers some insight into Catholic teaching. NPR's Tom Gjelten reports.

TOM GJELTEN, BYLINE²: Mother Teresa will be just one of hundreds of people declared saints since John Paul II was pope. But Robert Barron, a bishop³ in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, says her case is special.

ROBERT BARRON: When I was coming of age, she was the living saint. You know, if you were to say, who's someone today that would really embody⁴ the Christian⁵ life, you'd turn to Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

GJELTEN: It's no simple matter to embody the Christian life. To become a saint, one normally has to be associated with at least two miracles, and they have to be proven. If someone is suddenly healed after praying to a would-be saint, the Vatican has doctors verify there's no medical explanation for it. A group advocating sainthood for a nun⁶ in Canada asked Dr. Jacalyn Duffin to investigate the sudden recovery of a woman with incurable⁷ leukemia who had prayed to the nun 200 years after the nun's death. Duffin, a hematologist at Queens University in Ontario, agreed after warning that she was not herself a believer.

JACALYN DUFFIN: I revealed my atheism⁸ to them. I told them my husband was a Jew. And I wasn't sure if they'd still want me. And they were delighted.

GJELTEN: Delighted because if she, an atheist⁹, found there was no natural reason the woman should have recovered, who could doubt it was a miracle? In fact, Dr. Duffin agreed that the woman's healing was, for lack of a better word, miraculous¹⁰. The two miracles linked to Mother Teresa had to be likewise verified. A woman in India whose stomach tumor¹¹ disappeared and a man in Brazil who woke up from a coma¹² had both credited their recovery to prayers offered to Mother Teresa after she had died. Intrigued¹³ by her experience with the woman cured of leukemia, Dr. Duffin investigated hundreds of other cases in the Vatican archives. She came away convinced miracles do indeed happen.

DUFFIN: To admit that as a non-believer, you don't have to claim that it was a supernatural entity¹⁴ that did it. You have to admit some humility¹⁵ and accept that there are things that happen that science cannot explain.

GJELTEN: Hardcore rationalists wouldn't be likely to call these things miracles, even while acknowledging they have no obvious explanation. Catholicism says they involve heavenly intervention¹⁶. A miracle can happen if you pray to someone who is with God and therefore advocating on your behalf directly to God. Bishop Barron says this is why the Vatican says it's not enough that a candidate for sainthood has had an exemplary life on Earth.

BARRON: The saint is also someone now who's in heaven, living in this fullness of life with God. And the miracle, if you want to put it this bluntly, is the proof of it.

GJELTEN: Proof that the would-be saint is actually in heaven - a supernatural explanation.

JAMES MARTIN: Absolutely. It's completely supernatural.

GJELTEN: James Martin is a Jesuit priest and editor of the Jesuit magazine America. He says, if you have a problem with the supernatural, you probably have a problem with religion or God in general.

MARTIN: In a sense, it's a little arrogant¹⁷ of us to say, before I can believe in God, I need to understand God's ways. To me, that's kind of crazy - that we could sort of fit God into our mind. There are some things that happen that we cannot possibly understand.

GJELTEN: Pope Francis wants to reform the canonization process, making it less subject to organized lobby efforts. But the two-miracles requirement is likely to remain. Bishop Barron of Los Angeles says, without it, the church would be left with a watered-down Christianity.

BARRON: There is the trouble, if you want, with a liberal theology. It tends to domesticate¹⁸ God, make everything a little bit too neat and prim¹⁹ and tidy and rational. I kind of like how the miraculous shakes things up and shakes us out of a too-easy rationalism. We'll affirm everything great about modernity, you know, and the sciences and everything else, but I'm not going to affirm that that's all there is to life.

GJELTEN: There's one irony²⁰ about Mother Teresa's canonization. Father James Martin says that her diary writings revealed after her death that, for the last 50 years of her life, Mother Teresa didn't actually feel she was in touch with God.

MARTIN: At one point she says, in my heart, I feel that terrible pain of loss, of God not being God, of God not wanting me - I'm paraphrasing²¹ - and of God not existing.

GJELTEN: In the end, Father Martin says, Mother Teresa tells God, even though I don't feel you, I believe in you. He points out that she once suggested she would be called a saint of the darkness. Though she was seen in traditional terms during her lifetime worthy²² of veneration²³ because of her devotion to the poor, Mother Teresa becomes, after her death, in Martin's words, a much more modern saint, a saint for all those Christians²⁴ today who doubt and struggle with their faith. Tom Gjelten, NPR News.

1 browser   

n.浏览者

参考例句：

• View edits in a web browser.在浏览器中看编辑的效果。
• I think my browser has a list of shareware links.我想在浏览器中会有一系列的共享软件链接。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 bishop   

n.主教，（国际象棋）象

参考例句：

• He was a bishop who was held in reverence by all.他是一位被大家都尊敬的主教。
• Two years after his death the bishop was canonised.主教逝世两年后被正式封为圣者。

4 embody   

vt.具体表达，使具体化；包含，收录

参考例句：

• The latest locomotives embody many new features. 这些最新的机车具有许多新的特色。
• Hemingway's characters plainly embody his own values and view of life.海明威笔下的角色明确反映出他自己的价值观与人生观。

5 Christian   

adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒

参考例句：

• They always addressed each other by their Christian name.他们总是以教名互相称呼。
• His mother is a sincere Christian.他母亲是个虔诚的基督教徒。

6 nun   

n.修女，尼姑

参考例句：

• I can't believe that the famous singer has become a nun.我无法相信那个著名的歌星已做了修女。
• She shaved her head and became a nun.她削发为尼。

7 incurable   

adj.不能医治的，不能矫正的，无救的；n.不治的病人，无救的人

参考例句：

• All three babies were born with an incurable heart condition.三个婴儿都有不可治瘉的先天性心脏病。
• He has an incurable and widespread nepotism.他们有不可救药的，到处蔓延的裙带主义。

8 atheism   

n.无神论，不信神

参考例句：

• Atheism is the opinion that there is no God.无神论是认为不存在上帝的看法。
• Atheism is a hot topic.无神论是个热门话题。

9 atheist   

n.无神论者

参考例句：

• She was an atheist but now she says she's seen the light.她本来是个无神论者，可是现在她说自己的信仰改变了。
• He is admittedly an atheist.他被公认是位无神论者。

10 miraculous   

adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的

参考例句：

• The wounded man made a miraculous recovery.伤员奇迹般地痊愈了。
• They won a miraculous victory over much stronger enemy.他们战胜了远比自己强大的敌人，赢得了非凡的胜利。

11 tumor   

n.（肿）瘤，肿块(英)tumour

参考例句：

• He was died of a malignant tumor.他死于恶性肿瘤。
• The surgeons irradiated the tumor.外科医生用X射线照射那个肿瘤。

12 coma   

n.昏迷，昏迷状态

参考例句：

• The patient rallied from the coma.病人从昏迷中苏醒过来。
• She went into a coma after swallowing a whole bottle of sleeping pills.她吃了一整瓶安眠药后就昏迷过去了。

13 intrigued   

adj.好奇的，被迷住了的v.搞阴谋诡计(intrigue的过去式)；激起…的兴趣或好奇心；“intrigue”的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• You've really intrigued me—tell me more! 你说的真有意思—再给我讲一些吧！
• He was intrigued by her story. 他被她的故事迷住了。

14 entity   

n.实体，独立存在体，实际存在物

参考例句：

• The country is no longer one political entity.这个国家不再是一个统一的政治实体了。
• As a separate legal entity,the corporation must pay taxes.作为一个独立的法律实体，公司必须纳税。

15 humility   

n.谦逊，谦恭

参考例句：

• Humility often gains more than pride.谦逊往往比骄傲收益更多。
• His voice was still soft and filled with specious humility.他的声音还是那么温和，甚至有点谦卑。

16 intervention   

n.介入，干涉，干预

参考例句：

• The government's intervention in this dispute will not help.政府对这场争论的干预不会起作用。
• Many people felt he would be hostile to the idea of foreign intervention.许多人觉得他会反对外来干预。

17 arrogant   

adj.傲慢的，自大的

参考例句：

• You've got to get rid of your arrogant ways.你这骄傲劲儿得好好改改。
• People are waking up that he is arrogant.人们开始认识到他很傲慢。

18 domesticate   

vt.驯养；使归化，使专注于家务

参考例句：

• Many thousand years ago people learned how to domesticate animals.数千年以前人们就学会了饲养动物。
• If you domesticate this raccoon,it will have trouble living in the wild.如果你驯养这只浣熊，它生活在野外将会有困难。

19 prim   

adj.拘泥形式的，一本正经的；n.循规蹈矩，整洁；adv.循规蹈矩地，整洁地

参考例句：

• She's too prim to enjoy rude jokes!她太古板，不喜欢听粗野的笑话！
• He is prim and precise in manner.他的态度一本正经而严谨

20 irony   

n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄

参考例句：

• She said to him with slight irony.她略带嘲讽地对他说。
• In her voice we could sense a certain tinge of irony.从她的声音里我们可以感到某种讥讽的意味。

21 paraphrasing   

v.释义，意译( paraphrase的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• I'm paraphrasing but this is honestly what he said. 我是在转述，但这的确是他说的意思。 来自柯林斯例句

22 worthy   

adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的

参考例句：

• I did not esteem him to be worthy of trust.我认为他不值得信赖。
• There occurred nothing that was worthy to be mentioned.没有值得一提的事发生。

23 veneration   

n.尊敬，崇拜

参考例句：

• I acquired lasting respect for tradition and veneration for the past.我开始对传统和历史产生了持久的敬慕。
• My father venerated General Eisenhower.我父亲十分敬仰艾森豪威尔将军。

24 Christians   

n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Christians of all denominations attended the conference. 基督教所有教派的人都出席了这次会议。
• His novel about Jesus caused a furore among Christians. 他关于耶稣的小说激起了基督教徒的公愤。