Miracles! Why Stop?

Philip G. Roets STL, SSL

One of the puzzles that has disturbed people for a long time is the question about miracles. When Jesus was here, he performed miracles simply by a word or a touch. In Acts of Apostles, Luke says that the apostles, especially Peter and Paul, also worked miracles. Then the age of miracles seemed to disappear. Only an occasional miracle pops up here and there through the centuries. What happened?

I think the answer is obvious. Jesus did not intend to set up a circus type of existence that gloried in the sideshows and the unusual. His intent was to build on nature and develop the plan that the Father had from the beginning. The secret to this growth is to be found in the "Koinonia" or "sharing" that is to be the characteristic of his followers.

To establish what Jesus had in mind, he did by extraordinary power or miracles what his followers are to accomplish by working together in daily life. The Christian community is expected to heal sickness and disease and care for the dead. They are to minister to the poor in all their needs. This is what has been done. Look around our cities at the hospitals, doctors, nurses, medical personnel and all the workers. They spend their lives in the care of the sick: curing, comforting and consoling. Look at all the farmers raising food, the merchants who sell it and provide it for people in the cities, the clothing factories that make cloth and clothes and the stores that sell them. Modes of travel have developed to make it possible to travel throughout the world.

Because of cooperation and sharing, people have accomplished by ordinary means what Jesus pointed out by his miracles. The only time that these ordinary means are blocked is when hatred, fighting and wars destroy true love. Jesus did not want the unusual to become ordinary. He wanted to achieve unity, harmony, peace and love through the ideals that he set before us. In this way the world would become the place that the Father intended it to be: the home of the brotherhood of man because of the fatherhood of God.

In a certain sense, this is the real miracle. And it is within the grasp of every human being. It means that each person understands the true dignity of each human being. It means that each of us respects self and all other people. It means we do what is in our power to do in our daily lives to promote the brotherhood or fellowship or community of all people. As soon as everyone is acting in this manner, day after day, the true Kingdom of God will be established fully on earth. Then the second and final stage of the life of mankind can unfold.

This plan is not pietistic mush or unrealistic dreaming. It is set before us as the ideal of the plan of creation. It is to be established and fulfilled by true and constant thinking, planning and working together.