Do you believe in miracles?! 10th Sunday of Ordinary Time

           As the seconds waned down in the 1980 semifinals of the men’s hockey Olympic tournament, Al Michaels uttered one of the most famous sport’s broadcasts: “Do you believe in miracles?!”  Indeed, the severely outmatched United States team beat the Soviets in improbable fashion.  The game itself has since been known as the Miracle on Ice.

            We frequently use the word miracle to describe incredible events.  For instance, when I saw that we would have six days of sun in a row after this depressing spring, I called it a miracle.  If Fr. Rich cooked a meal I would say the same.  Someone who won the lottery would as well.

            But we must remember what a true miracle is.  A miracle is an event that takes place from God’s direct intervention in the world he created that reverses, suspends or overlooks what is possible at the natural level.

            I just finished reading C.S. Lewis’ work Miracles, and I highly recommend it if you are looking for a summer read.  In it, he argues that there are two types of people in the world—those who believe in miracles and those that don’t.  Those that don’t he calls naturalists because they believe this world is all there is.  Our society could qualify for this camp as it is driven by scientific proof and skeptical, even critical, of believing in something beyond this world.  He labels supernaturalists as those who believe in miracles, convicted that God created all that we know and from time to time directly alters worldly events.  C.S. Lewis notes that we Christians must believe in miracles because our whole faith is based on them.

            We see this first hand in the Scriptures—the book of miracles.  Each of our readings contains impressive miracles wrought by the hand of God.  In the first reading and Gospel, God raises the dead—a child and man respectively—through the hands of Elijah and Jesus.  Not only do these miracles show God’s power over life and death, but also His generosity to those in dire need.  In both cases a widow’s livelihood was at stake and the gift of new life was able to provide them with food, home and company.  No human power could ever do this. 

            Then in St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians, he recounts how he learned about Jesus: “I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel preached by me is not of human origin.  For I did not receive it from a human being, nor was I taught it, but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ.”  Paul did not study Christ’s life and work from humans, rather, he received a divine experience from the resurrected Christ.

             C.S. Lewis also speaks of the Grand Miracles which found our faith.  The first is the incarnation of Jesus Christ.  This miracle can only be called grand as God stooped down to become one of us, sharing in our human nature in all things but sin.  And as a bookend to the incarnation, Jesus Christ—crucified and died for our sake—rose again from the dead.  In both cases, God showed His power by entering into our own lives in the most real way possible and by redeeming us when it was impossible for us to do so.

            In 1980 Al Michaels described a hockey game as miraculous.  This was done to highlight the improbability of a sporting outcome.  Yet the line he uttered is worth pondering as Catholics and so I ask you this morning, “Do you believe in miracles?”