Miracles

Even though my children are sometimes very very difficult on the one day when they are not, it is a miracle – of a less spectacular kind – because it gives me hope to get me through the darker days…

Parting of the Red Sea (Motty Mendelovitz)

I have been reflecting on miracles.

There is such a temptation to see a miracle as something very spectacular. 

I can think of a number of miracles like this… 

Ancient miracles like the parting of the Red Sea, “Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all that night and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. And the people of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left.” (Exodus 14:21-22).

I can think of the miracles in scripture – Saint Simon Peter walking on water (Matthew 14:22-33), or the healing of the lame and dumb and blind and deaf as Christ travelled throughout Galilee, teaching, preaching, and “healing every disease and sickness among the people.” (Matthew 4:23-24).

Of course, the greatest of these Ancient Miracles are the miracles associated with the Conception, Birth and Resurrection of Christ…

And there are more modern miracles as well.  The Miracle of the Sun – witnessed by some fifty to seventy thousand people on 13 October 1917 in Fátima, Portugal.  During this Miracle, which Our Lady of Fatima promised to the three visionary shepherd children to whom she appeared, the ground and clothing of the witnesses, which had been drenched by terrible heavy rain, were dried as the sun appeared to dance in the sky and zoom towards the earth for a period of time, during which the shepherd children experienced their own revelations and visions.

Those are the big miracles – flashy and spectacular...  They are the curing of cancer.  They are the movement of the sun.  They are the entering of God into Time and Space.  Big.

But there are other miracles – quieter ones as well.

There is the miracle of my children.  I have a condition that makes it virtually impossible for me to have conceived children.  And yet, I have three children and one little soul who I have hope is in Heaven.  I discovered my condition almost by chance when why children were almost teenagers.

There is the miracle of a quiet day.  I have long argued with my children – trying to help them to become better people.  At times they can try my patience quite drastically.  At times I have almost despaired of them – not because they are bad children, but because I feel completely overwhelmed in trying to influence and guide them.  When they make a good choice or try to do the right thing, this is a miracle in itself.  Perhaps it is not spectacular, but it is a miracle all the same…

You see, the purpose of a miracle is to give hope.  The Sea that was once parted, closed over again and never parted again.  The people who Christ healed eventually died.  The sun was restored to its place.  But the fruit of the miracle is hope.

And that is why even though my children are sometimes very very difficult on the one day when they are not, it is a miracle – of a less spectacular kind – because it gives me hope to get me through the darker days…

For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.