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By Fr. Roy Cimagala *
GIVEN the precarious and wounded condition of our human life, plus the fact that we are meant to live a supernatural life, one that is simply beyond our human powers to attain without the help of God’s grace, we have to understand that many times we need to ask for miracles, those extraordinary interventions we ask of God for the simple reason that we would just find ourselves in some situations to be helpless and hopeless.
In fact, in the world today, we can detect an increasing number of predicaments that often reduce us to helplessness. This can be brought about by the new technologies that, while giving us a lot of advantages, can also cause great harm. Yes, these new technologies are a double-edged sword.
This truth about our need for faith for miracles to happen was illustrated many times in the gospel where all sorts of people approached Christ asking for some miracles. In the gospel of St. John (4,43-54) for example, we are given that episode of a royal official who begged Christ to heal his ill son. And the main factor that made that miracle take place was the faith that officials had.
“Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe,” Christ said. But the royal official said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” Jesus said to him, “You may go; your son will live.” And since that official believed, his son was cured.
We have to have a strong faith for miracles to happen. If we have this kind of faith, we know that we always need to go to Christ, like those many helpless characters in the gospel who approached him for a cure. In other words, we cannot anymore rely on our human natural and human powers alone to handle our extraordinary predicaments. We have to beg for miracles!
Miracles are certainly part of what God has made available for our problems. When St. Paul said: “God will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it,” (1 Cor 10,13) he must have included this extraordinary recourse to miracles as one of God’s ways for us to endure any temptation or predicament.
And so let us go to Christ like the blind man Bartimaeus (Mk 10,46-52), the woman with the flow of blood (Mk 5,25), the 10 lepers (Lk 17,11-19), the man born blind (Jn 9,1-12), the man possessed by a legion of devils (Mk 5,1-10), and many others. Let’s go to him without delay, without hesitation.
We can also help others go to Christ if they themselves cannot do it, like what the father of a possessed boy did (Mk 9,17-24), those who brought a paralytic to Christ (Mk 2,4), the centurion who asked Jesus to heal his servant (Lk 7,1-10), etc. We can do a lot of good to others if we do this.
What is important is that we approach Christ with deep faith. In those miraculous cures Christ did, he always referred to the great faith of those who asked for those miracles.
Let us humble ourselves so that that faith can grow and show itself in deeds, like intense prayers and sacrifice. Remember what Christ told his disciples why they could not cure an epileptic boy. It was because of their little faith. (cfr. Mt 17,20)
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