This week’s tale from my podcast Stories of the Unexpected is my account of how I witnessed the sun spinning on a visit to Medjugorje in the mid-1980’s. It’s a strange tale because this sort of miracle is so difficult to understand. I take a moment to not only tell what happened, but ask what this could mean and what sort of a miracle it really is.
We know that the sun physically did not spin, just as we know that at Fatima in 1917 the sun did not plunge to the earth. We know enough about the physical world to know that the sun can’t do these things. The sun can’t plunge to the earth. It is millions of times bigger than the earth. Therefore the miracle did not take place in the physical realm, but it did take place in an objective way within our perception. So what happened?
You can listen to The Day I Saw the Sun Spin here. I should remind you that this section of the blog-website is reserved to Donor Subscribers. Stories of the Unexpected is a special podcast series about the supernatural, the strange, the miraculous and the marvelous. They are all true stories that have happened to me, to my family members and friends. There are also some stories from the lives of the saints and church history. If you would like to listen to a free sample episode go here.
Donor Subscribers make a monthly donation to help towards the costs of keeping this blog-website free from all ads. Their donation helps pay for design, hosting, development and promotion of the blog. This helps get most of my blog posts and podcasts out free of charge to thousands of people worldwide. If you would like to learn more about the benefits of being a Donor Subscriber go here.
When my husband and I were young newlyweds, we cohosted a pilgrimage to Medjugorje. We were the only people under thirty by a long shot. It was a real slog to shepherd a big group of mostly seniors to what was then still a Communist country. Accommodations were primitive, the food was terrible, and everything seemed difficult, but people began to have amazingly profound experiences of God. There were several powerful conversions within our group. Nearly everyone saw the sun miracle at least once.
As a leader of the group, the only time I could relax for prayer alone was in the middle of the night on the mountain. I began to complain to the Lord that nothing spectacular was happening for me (after all the trouble I’d gone through to get these folks here, etc, etc.) Anyway, near the end of the trip, I was up there with my pocket Gospel and a flashlight, and I asked the Lord why I hadn’t seen anything unusual, and He had me flip right to the part of the Prodigal Son where the elder son was whining about the party being thrown for his brother. Convicting, to say the least. But the Lord is the best of Fathers, so He gave me the gift of seeing the sun spin on the very last day of our trip, as we were boarding the bus near lunchtime. Awesome. He also gave me that gift three more times after we got home. Once, at the funeral of a woman who had taken the trip with us, again in Massachusetts where we saw one of the visionaries speak, and once out my kitchen window during a really tough spell. Haven’t seen it in many years , though. Really could use that encouragement again now!