Miracles on a grand scale are not part of my experience. I remember when my sister died. I would have liked the kind of miracle that we read about in the Gospel. I remember praying for such a miracle. In the intervening years I have come to a different understanding of how God works, of what is the meaning of scripture and how my prayer fits into my relationship with God. I have always wanted to visit Lourdes to see healing occur. My sense is such a visit would not reveal an example of physical healing but it likely would include observable examples of spiritual healing. My career is built around the notion that we can make reasonable predictions about the world around us. As our understanding of the world increases, our need to attribute physical phenomena to unknown causes decreases. Still I see a transformative God acting in this world. I believe this is the God that we encounter in the first reading. I find myself in a world composed of individuals of diverse talents. I see the Spirit uniting these individuals in a grand activity that is greater than any of us individually. Here is my sense of the Divine miracle that we experience: my feeling is that the “miracle” of the Spirit is far more commonplace than the Divine interventions that are often the basis for prayer at funerals, exam days and football weekends. My prayer today is to open my heart to the wide variety of individuals who participate in this shared process in the Spirit. We come from a variety of backgrounds and understandings. I unfortunately find myself often quick to judge those whose spiritualities do not match my own. I pray today for the ability to recognize the gifts that others bring. I pray not to become bogged down in the differences in how we see God’s gifts manifested on this earth and how we choose to express this understanding. I pray for the patience and openness to learn from those with whom we are joined in the Spirit. |