The Ire of God
The natural phenomena are looked upon thru ignorance as manifestations of the divine wrath which would not have taken place if no one among humanity had not provoked them by their conduct. Saint Thomas Aquinas, who with reason is considered as the most scientific man of his period, believed firmly that the thunder, lightning, and the storms were punitive manifestations of God enraged against men. “From his fear of God, the saintly doctor had an unearthly fear of thunder and tempests, who as a reverent child feared to see wrath in the face of the Father, hoping only that those tempests were not provoked by his sins” (Milicia Angélica, Manila, 1907, p. 21).
The blind fear of Saint Thomas led him to conceive a blind justice of the divinity, because of his sins God released the tempests and gave lightning which naturally hurt and molested a great number of persons who suffered by reason of the sins of the saint. To the simple believer, when the wise saint thought and believed in that manner, there was no reason for rejecting the explanation, much less to suspect that to punish justly the sinners was not an act of justice nor of common sense.
Lack of Logic
Logical mentality cannot be developed when the absurd is fomented and cultivated, especially when it is presented under the false veneer of religion, when it is founded on a purely puerile and simple superstition.
In the life of Saint Vicente Ferrer, according to his novenas, the following miracles are referred to, and there is no doubt that he who believes in them cannot really cultivate the faculties of his intelligence.
In Valencia a servant of Count de Faura, who was born deaf and without tongue, was that way for many years, and adoring one day the miracle of Saint Vicente, was cured of his deafness, his tongue grew, and thenceforward spoke (p. 17).
A woman gave birth to a piece of meat (pedazo de carne) without a human aspect. It was offered to Saint Vicente giving a mass, and at the Epistle, it already had head; at the Gospel, it had arms; and at the Consecration, it had legs, and finally a beautiful child was evolved. The same happened with another woman of Toledo (p. 34).
In Lisbon there lived a woman well-known for being quite ugly and was the object of ridicule on the part of all who saw her. She went to San Vicente and one morning she became very fortunate and beautiful, from which the women of Lisbon became so devout to San Vicente that those in Valencia did not excel them (p. 27).
A merchant left once for a fair and meanwhile the wife committed an indiscretion (una fragilidad) for which she remained * * *. She came and appeared repentant to San Vicente and the same went to the road whereon the husband returned with some horses, and startled them by means of a cloak and thus dispersed them. Then the husband lost time to gather his horses so that when he returned to his house his wife had time to flee from him, thus saving herself from the consequences of her fault.