“It’s okay to pray for something little, Jeffy. Everything’s little to God.”
Family Circus
As I was thinking about the miracles in today’s readings, I stumbled across this Family Circus cartoon in the comics. It hit me that little Jeffy, Abraham, the centurion and St. Peter were all doing the same thing – trusting God to intervene in their lives.
Although the Biblical miracles seem important, like Jeffy’s prayers, they are “little to God.” This puts things into perspective.
If we learned to pray when we were Jeffy’s age, prayer is almost hard-wired into our brains. We instinctively ask God’s help for the people we love and whatever we’re doing. Most of what we pray about is daily trivia but that’s okay. Even the greatest events in human history must seem trivial in God’s eyes.
So we will continue our daily conversations with God about the big and small things in our lives. We trust that we aren’t just talking to ourselves, hoping that our prayers will be answered in some form, if not what we seek.
Such faith and trust is the basis for the big miracles that most of us will never experience. We can content ourselves with the small miracles of every day life if we’re alert enough to perceive them.
Eileen Wirth
I’m a retired Creighton journalism professor, active in St. John’s parish and a CLC member. In retirement, I write books about state and local history, including a history of the parish, and do volunteer PR consulting for groups like Habitat for Humanities, refugees etc. I love to read, work out, spend time with family and friends including those who can no longer get out much.
Writing reflections has deepened my faith by requiring me to engage deeply with Jesus through the Scriptures. In the many years I have been doing this, I’ve also formed friendships with regular readers nationally, most of whom I have never met. Hearing from readers and what I learn by writing make the hours I spend on each reflection well worth the effort.
