Grasping the true miracle

OCTOBER 12, 2007

My dear friends,

People are hungry for God. They thirst for the Lord.

Never was that more evident than at St. Brendan Parish a few weeks ago, where thousands filed through the Blessed Sacrament chapel to see what many described as miraculous: the shadow of the Holy Family reflected on an altar linen.

Whatever people saw, it was gone five days later when the candle in front of the altar was replaced. (In every Catholic church, the lit candle indicates the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, and it is regularly replaced as it burns down.)

The absence of a miracle was disappointing to many. Others say they are angry at the church for taking away what they perceived as a "miracle."

Indeed, wonderful things happened at St. Brendan during those five days. Many received spiritual blessings. Others rediscovered a long-lost faith.

But the church must be very careful when declaring anything a miracle. Natural explanations must be sought and completely ruled out before any apparition or healing can be declared miraculous. The process takes years, precisely because the church wants to be certain that whatever it declares a miracle is beyond all human explanation and in defiance of natural law.

The church must do this in order to safeguard against superstition, for true faith is neither magic nor illusion, and it is never opposed to reason.

Still, people seek "signs and wonders" today just as they did in the time of Jesus. This quest for the extraordinary can sometimes cause them to lose perspective, and to miss out on the true presence of Jesus in their midst.

Indeed, there was something greater than shadows in St. Brendan's chapel those five days. The miracle remains long after the shadows disappeared, and it was there long before the shadows appeared.

The true miracle at St. Brendan is the living presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. It is a miracle repeated daily at every Mass. It is a miracle preserved in every tabernacle of every Catholic church. It is a miracle exposed for all to see and adore in the chapels of countless Catholic parishes, chapels just like the one at St. Brendan.

Yet how many take for granted this great miracle? How many take the time to go to these chapels and spend some time in prayer before the Lord?

We are so obsessed with finding God in the extraordinary that we casually dismiss his presence in the ordinary, in bread and wine transformed miraculously into his body and blood.

Perhaps this miracle is difficult to comprehend. Perhaps we simply take it for granted. (Certainly, I wonder about that when I see people going up to receive Communion while chewing gum.)

The Scriptures remind us that our God does not reveal himself in peals of thunder and bolts of lightning. He revealed himself to Elijah in "a tiny whispering sound." He revealed himself to humanity as the infant son of a humble carpenter's wife. He reveals himself to us every day in the ordinary form of bread and wine.

That is the miracle that will satisfy our hunger and quench our thirst for God. Take the time to visit him in the Blessed Sacrament, to pray in his presence, to appreciate what it means to receive the body and blood of the Lord: "I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world" (Jn 6:51).

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