A Homily for the Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Readings: 2 Kings 4:42-44 Ephesians 4:1-6 John 6:1-15
What is a miracle? Here is the right answer: A miracle is a great action of God on our behalf, which we perceive through the gift of faith. Let’s look at why other answers are wrong.
Some would say that a miracle is God breaking the laws of nature. This may indeed occur, but it is not a sufficient definition of a miracle. Why?
First, because we do not know all the laws of nature. So we cannot say for sure whether some wonder breaks laws of nature already accepted or merely adheres to those not yet recognized. For example, a photographic image might appear to be a miracle to a primitive person, but it violates no known laws of nature.
And the laws of nature are not what they once were, not after David Hume, the Scottish philosopher of the Enlightenment, got finished with them. Strictly speaking, nature does not exist, at least not as we imagine. There is not something in the world, some entity, which we call nature. Apologies to anyone who might want to worship nature.
As Hume pointed out, “nature” is only a pattern of occurrences observed by us. The sun comes up every day, but this does not guarantee that it will continue to do so. No rule of logic or of any other necessity would be broken if it did not do so tomorrow. Indeed, in the wake of such an event—not that we would survive the wave—we would simply begin to look for reasons why the earth had spun out of its orbit, reasons we had not been able to foresee. Nature is nothing more than stable patterns, and our expectations only appear to guarantee their repetition.
Hume also pointed out that we cannot step out of the world and, from that exterior vantage point, watch God act upon it. No, we are like fish in an aquarium. All we know is that food appears on the surface of the tank each day, not how it gets there. Even when God acts upon the world in an extraordinary way, we cannot say that we saw God do this. We cannot step out of the world and watch God act.
So set aside the laws of nature in defining a miracle. We do not adequately know them; they are only patterns, not necessities, and we cannot watch God act from some neutral position outside the world.
Besides, in turning to the laws of nature, an entirely different category of miracles was ignored, what might be called the historical. For example, some assert that Donald J.Trump’s survival of an attempted assassination is a miracle, but they are not claiming that any laws of nature were broken. They are saying that God intervened, allowing the movement of the former president’s head just in time for the bullet to only hit his ear. And plenty of us have had similar near-death—or near-terrible-accident—events. But in those experiences, Hume’s objection about God acting upon the world still holds. No one can say that they saw God intervene.
But if we cannot watch God perform a miracle, if we can only see its effects, how do we know that we have witnessed a miracle? Here’s the answer. The same way that we know that there is a God, by faith.
Faith is more than acceptance without evidence. That is one part of faith. The more foundational element is the unique and undeniable knowledge that comes from a true experience of God in prayer or through God’s action.
Whether it satisfies the unbeliever or the immature believer, faith is an act of perception, a knowledge of the truth, which comes to us as the gift of God. Those who have truly experienced God know that they have, but there is no way that they can step outside their lives and show this to another.
Faith is not scientific knowledge, but it is nonetheless true knowledge. Faith is a deeply human way of knowing. For example, we know when another person loves us. We may sometimes be wrong about love, but mistakes do not invalidate ways of knowing.
True love is its own evidence, even if we cannot produce it as proof. Whatever we might bring forth as evidence can always be rejected by others. They can always say something like: Your mother never loved you. She simply did not want to be judged by others for failing to love you.
As C. S. Lewis once pointed out, God could hover over the sky above us, in a way visible to everyone, and still not compel belief. Some would rise the next day and declare that they had merely suffered from a momentary delusion. Christ fed the multitude, but because human knowledge is both fallen and fallible, one can always argue that there was more food than previously imagined or that what is really being claimed is people learned how to share.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church says:
The signs worked by Jesus attest that the Father has sent him. They invite belief in him. To those who turn to him in faith, he grants what they ask. So miracles strengthen faith in the One who does his Father’s works; they bear witness that he is the Son of God. But his miracles can also be occasions for “offense;” they are not intended to satisfy people’s curiosity or desire for magic. Despite his evident miracles some people reject Jesus; he is even accused of acting by the power of demons (No. 548).
Can you see the sense of our opening definition? A miracle is some great action of God on our behalf, which we perceive by the gift of faith. Miracles are not more real than faith, and they do not need to be because faith is as real as life comes.
Having said all of this, miracles are real, and I can testify to one in my life. After a prolonged series of unexplained collapses and many trips to emergency rooms and specialists, I was diagnosed with narcolepsy. My version came with what is called cataplexy, which produced the sudden falls. A neurologist at Columbia Presbyterian explained that my muscles would literally fall asleep while my brain struggled to stay awake. Narcolepsy is a degenerative disease. It cannot be cured.
For 20 years, I used to say that I was not really sick, though I could easily have died from a bad fall in the wrong place or while driving. I also suffered from swaying and tremors. Insurance paid tens of thousands of dollars for highly controlled substances designed to keep me awake during the day, to go to sleep at night or to ward off falls.
Two years ago, the Scripture scholar Professor Mary Healy gave a workshop to our priests. As one who believes strongly in the healing power of prayer, she asked if she could pray over us for healing on the last day. She extended her hands and prayed. She then declared that she knew it had been effective. For almost two years, I have taken no medicine for narcolepsy and have been symptom free.
God never compels. God’s relationship to us is one of love, and love cannot compel. Miracles do not compel faith. They come from faith, they invite us to faith and they strengthen faith.
