Incorruptible bodies, an ongoing miracle?
Mary of Agreda's body is incorruptible to this day, and we can see her in Agreda, Spain after more than 300 years of her passing. Many other saints, like Padre Pio and Saint Bernadette (the picture below is of her dead body, 140 years after her death! ), are incorruptible to this day. Another miracle to increase our faith and trust in God.
Book: St. Bernadette Soubirous: 1844-1879 by Francois Trochu
This blog link makes further comments about this miracle. Skeptics may have to deal with the fact that this supernatural occurrence is as old as Christianity, as Saint Augustine, in his book "Confessions", written in the year 400ac, said: "... revealing where the bodies of the martyred Gervasius and Protasius lay hidden. For years, God had preserved them incorrupt."
Book: Confessions (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) by Augustine of Hippo
Book: The Incorruptible: A Study of the Incorruption of the Bodies of Various Catholic Saints and Beati by Joan Carroll Cruz
Saint Charbel Makhlouf spent most of his day in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. He is known to have taken hard penances by sleeping on a slab of stone with a half stump of wood as his pillow. He endured frequent hunger, poverty, physical fatigue and unbearable cold with the courage of a martyr. Through his prayer and penance he hoped to offer a sacrifice for the reconciliation of the whole world to God. During his lifetime, there are several miracles that are attributed to him. But it was after his death that the most remarkable event occurred. He died on Christmas Eve in 1898 following a stroke. As was the monastic custom then, the body was not embalmed, was dressed in full habit of the Order and consigned to the grave without a coffin. After he was buried, a great light started emanating from the grave. The mysterious light could be seen from a great distance and continued for 45 days after his death. When the grave was opened in the presence of the Superiors and other monks of the Order, it was found to be in perfect condition.
He appeared and cured an Australian woman with terminal cancer in 2022,
Personally, I had the distinct feeling someone wanted me to notice something when, on July 24th, 2023, my car smelled like incense. I paid attention and realized that the Catholic Church celebrates the life of St. Charbel Makhlouf on July 24th!
Let Monseigneur Bougaud, Bishop of Laval, clarify incorruption in 1890,
When Mary Magdalen (a witness to Jesus' crucifixion) died, and time had gradually dried up all her bones, there was in her, also, a morsel of flesh that resisted corruption. It was that which the Lord had touched when she approached Him after His resurrection. With the words, " Noli me tangere," He laid His finger on her forehead to keep her at a distance. Twelve hundred years after, on that spot of the forehead, the flesh appeared quick and living, as if to show us human flesh, even the most profaned, after the transfiguring finger of God has touched it to purify it. In like manner, when St. John Nepomucene(1345-1393) was martyred for not revealing the secrets of the confessional, his tongue was spared, although his whole body had become the prey of death. Three hundred years after his death, it was found fresh and living, an eternal witness to the divinity of the confessional. Again, when St.Chantal(1572-1641) died, nothing could dry up her heart. It still seemed to live. At certain moments it was seen to swell with sorrow or love, as if to teach the world not to doubt the ardor with which it beat when living. In Margaret Mary(1647-1690)'s case it was the head that resisted death, because it was of the head the world doubted. God preserved it intact, in order to render venerable the thoughts that emanated from it. Let us add faith in the sublime inventions of which it was the organ... a glimpse of the saint...the incorruptibility of the cranium...such it might seem she was two hundred years ago, in the days of her earthly pilgrimage.
Book: Life of Blessed Margaret Mary Alacoque: From the French of Monseigneur Bougaud by Rt REV Emile Bougaud