Little Miracles

 

I read tomorrow’s Gospel about three miracles Jesus performed (Mt 8).  He healed the leper, the centurion’s servant (who was far away), and then Peter’s mother-in-law.  The severity of their illnesses varied, and it occurred to me, first of all, that Jesus did them all out of love, the reason for all His miracles.  Despite being fully human, I don’t recall Jesus ever performing any miracles out of anger, hurting people.  They are all God’s children and despite their sins, He loved them anyway.  All his miracles were out of love.  But a second thought occurred to me: these were little miracles.  By definition, miracles are beyond human capabilities, but Jesus is also God and as God, even as He created all people, can heal all people.  So, relative to God’s capabilities, these three miracles described in Matthew are minor things.

As God, He has done much bigger things (like created the universe), and will do much bigger things in the future, things way beyond our understanding.  So, why did Jesus choose to do these relatively little miracles?  Now, we can speculate all sorts of reasons why God does things, but these were visible examples, done in front of a group of people.  Why little miracles, when He could have done much bigger ones, so that everyone would know beyond a doubt that He was God.  Why didn’t He?  I think (sometimes I do that) that perhaps He tells us why in many places in the Gospels:  He came to teach us, teach us how to live as we were created to.  He came in human form to give human examples.  Words from on high wouldn’t get His message across.  He needed to give visible examples of how He created us to live.  He did tell us how, bluntly, in a few places in the Gospels:  Love God and love neighbor, and you will have eternal life.  God IS Love, and humans were created with the capability to love, and grow in love, and so to become more like Him.  The Gospels and His actions are nothing but examples of how He loved, and therefore how we should love.  He loved so much He couldn’t NOT work some miracles when they were called for, but they are done so they could be seen as examples of loving someone in need of love.

The Catholic Church identifies some people as saints, both because of the confidence they are in heaven, and the further examples they were of how to love.  Mother Teresa of Calcutta is a saint, and was famous or saying: “Do ordinary things with extraordinary love.”  All persons and experiences of our lives are important, as opportunities to love God and neighbor, and so take another step towards eternal life.

We all can do little miracles. We were all given free will, and we can choose to love.