Prayer

[Catholic_Lady]

I'd also like to clear up again that I do believe in miracles. However, I understand they are very rare, and the general consensus in my faith is that it is much more likely that God answers prayers by working through people rather than through supernatural intervention.  

If I lost my car keys, for example, I could pray for God to make them magically appear in front of me. Or I could pray for God's help in trying to remember where I put them, or in thinking of likely places I could look. 

But probably 99.9% of the time, when people lose their keys and ask God for help, they mean the latter.

Then maybe you could clear something up for me.  I've chatted with various other people on various forums, some of them Catholics, who believe every brisk breeze is a miracle and absolute proof that God is real.  That last Catholic I remember talking to pretty much accepted any and every claim of a miracle as absolute proof, even if it was so week that the Catholic Church would not recognize it as a miracle.  So I have two questions.

First, the big one (I know it's more than one, but it's a general theme rather than a single question).  Miracles were obviously not rare in the Bible.  Why are they so rare now?  What purpose did they serve in the past that no longer needs served now?  Why did God change?

I've never talked with anyone who thinks the breeze, in and of itself, is proof of God. So it's hard to comment on that first paragraph without talking to the person himself that said this. 

Now to answer your question. Miracles are not rare "in the bible" because that's pretty much what the bible is about lol. Supernatural happenings, God, etc etc. I don't take the OT stories as literal, real happenings, so it's pointless to comment on those. Most of the miracles described in the NT are attributed to miracles performed by Jesus during His life here. That's one person performing miracles out of the however many millions that were alive back then. I'd say in perspective miracles were still pretty rare.

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Second, what types of miracles do you believe happen today?  Are they anything like the big things of the past or are they now more subtle, more "undisprovable", if you will?  Again, why did God change?  Are there any specific miracles in modern times that you believe?  Are those miracles consistent with stories of miracles in the Bible?  For instance, every single miracle in the Bible had a clear purpose.  There was a clear reason behind every single one.  A statue crying, not so much.  So if miracles are not just weird things that happen which can't be explained empirically, again, why did God change?

A big one that happened not too long ago was the miracle of the sun in fatima. I think most Church approved miracles consist of apparitions and spontaneous healing of serious illnesses/disorders.

I don't believe miracles have changed, necessarily. Perhaps they were more necessary during early Christianity when the disciples were trying to spread the word, but I don't think this means God has changed. I guess you would have to ask that question to someone who takes a literal view of the OT stories.