Jesus was famous for performing miracles. “ But, why did Jesus perform miracles?” I ask the school kids. And they usually do a pretty good job with that too. Jesus performed miracles because he loves us, he and he wants people to know that He is God.
People from all around galilee came to know that Jesus could perform miracles. They would come to him in great crowds. And many came to believe in his Divinity, when they saw his signs and heard his teachings.
After the Ascension of the Lord into heaven, the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders, as they spread the Gospel in fidelity to their great commission. There are stories of Saint Thomas performing miracles in India, Peter raised Tabitha from the dead, Paul healed the sick at Malta and raised the dead. Saint Jude the Apostle has been known throughout the centuries as the patron saint of hopeless causes—his prayerful intercession has brought countless miraculous cures.
And throughout the history of the Church many saints could perform miracles: Saint John Bosco, whose feast was on Thursday, performed so many miracles that Pope Pius XI said that in the life of Don Bosco, “the supernatural almost became natural, and the extraordinary, ordinary”. Don Bosco performed many healings; he once even raised a young boy from the dead who died in a state of mortal sin so the boy could make a sacramental confession. Countless miracles fill the lives of saints like Patrick, Catherine of Siena, St. Kevin, Benedict, and Clare.
I personally witnessed what I believe to be a miracle from a modern day saint. I was attending world youth day in Toronto and we were all camped out in a field on Saturday night, as we were to celebrate Sunday Mass in the morning with Holy Father Pope John Paul II. At about 5 a.m. it started to rain. Everyone woke up and covered themselves in tarps and umbrellas, but it was pretty miserable as sprinkling quickly turned into downpour. When Mass started it was raining harder than ever, and everyone was totally soaked.
You might know that during the Easter Season it is common to use The Rite of Sprinkling: the priest sprinkles the congregation with Holy Water to recall the saving waters of Baptism. At Mass that morning, Pope John Paul II looked out at the crowd in the pouring rain and declared, "Today we will have the Rite of Sprinkling by natural means!" He then said, “May almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us our sins and bring us to everlasting life.” And within seconds…seconds, the rain stopped and the sun came out, and Mass continued with the Gloria.
Speaking of miracles, February 3rd is the feast of Saint Blaise. Saint Blaise was a bishop and martyr from the 4th century who miraculously cured a young boy who was choking to death. St. Blaise is invoked as the patron saint of throat ailments, and so we will bestow the blessing of throats at the end of Mass today.
In the Gospel today, Jesus had come to Nazareth, into the synagogue of his youth, and read from the scroll a passage of how the messiah would come performing miracles: the blind would see, the deaf would hear, and a time of favor from the Lord would be inaugurated. Jesus explained how this prophecy was being fulfilled in their hearing.
The people had already heard of some of the healing miracles Jesus had performed. So what was their response to his radical claim—the claim that he was the long-awaited for Messiah?
Well, initially they were favorable toward him. They thought, hey, this is the son of Joseph, the carpenter. If this guy is really the Messiah, we are his home-town boys, this is going to be favorable for us. He’s been performing miracles, I could definitely use one of those. A miracle-working messiah, and I’m his next door neighbor.
But, Jesus knew their hearts, and he detected a problem—a stumbling-block. They wanted the miracles without discipleship. They wanted the fame without the hard work. They wanted the glory without the responsibility. They wanted resurrection without the cross.
Detecting this problem, Jesus tells two stories from the Old testament, one about the widow of Zarapheth, and the other about Naaman the Syrian. These two people were non-Jews, non-Jews who received healing and blessing and miracles from the God of the Jews, while Jews were passed up and deprived of blessing and miracle because of their lack of faith.
In relating these stories what is Jesus saying here, first to the people of Nazareth and secondly to us? Just because you are from Nazareth doesn’t mean you will inherit the kingdom. Salvation requires faith, it requires discipleship.
Jesus’ miracles, as our school kids point out, are to help us know and follow Jesus. Sometimes I think we are deprived of miracles for good reason, because God knows that we’ll receive the miracle and then go right back to the life of sin and unbelief.
Incited by Jesus’ insinuations, the townsfolk rose up, and drove him to the edge of a cliff to kill him. A few minutes ago they were saying how great he was, praising the gracious words coming from his lips; now they were filled with murderous fury? Why? Jesus exposed some darkness in them, some hard-heartedness. And some people are not willing to change. Jesus did not come to satisfy selfish requests. But rather, to help us, once and for all to overcome all selfishness, and to show us that it is the path of self-sacrifice and Christian belief which leads to heaven.
This has everything to do with who we are as members of the Christian Church in this 21st century. For we can easily fall into the same trap as the people of Nazareth, we can start to take Jesus for granted, or we can become bitter or angry when God doesn’t grant us miracles on our terms. We, like the citizens of Nazareth, all too easily driven Jesus to the fringes to throw Jesus off the cliff, so we didn’t have to think about him, so he wouldn’t prick our consciences, so we wouldn’t have to change our life, so we wouldn’t have to get off the couch.
The saints and the Christians you know have not driven Jesus to the fringes. Rather, through lives of prayer, lives of service, they live in grateful response to have received salvation in Jesus Christ. For the thrust of the Christian life is gratitude for already having received the miracle, the only miracle, that in the end truly matters: the gift of new life through baptism, the second chance at heaven. That’s the miracle. The most important miracle. The revivification of souls dead in sin brought about by Jesus’ own self-sacrifice, his suffering and death on the cross.
This is why weekly mass is essential for Christians. Without weekly mass we begin to take that miracle for granted, Our Lord’s self-sacrifice, his suffering and death for granted. And then we know how easily worldly preoccupations can creep in, Christian devotion are set aside, Christian service is left for others. Soon, the things of the world take on greater importance than the things of God. And our souls begin to separate from the source of life and goodness.
When we receive the Lord in faith, we begin to become our best-selves. We begin to see the amazing miracles God is working in the world now. May we make the choice to believe in the miracle of new life through Jesus, and change our lives accordingly, that he might make us his instruments of bringing sight to the blind, liberty to captives, and good news to the poor for the glory of God and salvation of souls.
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