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In our time and place, miracles still abound. The sun rises and sets, often in spectacular beauty. Spring gradually colors an earth that appeared barren. Penicillin, heart transplants and other medical advances save people who fifty years ago, would have died young. People reach beyond their selfish needs to help others, even when it’s costly.

When power and back-up generators failed during hurricane Sandy in Oct., 2012, nurses at New York University hospital carefully carried patients, including a 27-week old premature baby, down nine flights of steps, evacuating them to other hospitals in the middle of the night. Less dramatic but just as kindly, those who had power after the storm ran long extension cords to their porches so those without could charge their cell phones and computers.

Sometimes we pray long and hard for a miracle, then when it finally arrives, we get used to it. Aching to be healthy again—then taking it for granted after the cure. Hoping to get pregnant, praying for a healthy baby, then wanting to strangle that surly teenager fourteen years later. Or wanting so badly to get the house… the job… the promotion… whatever it was, and now just wanting to get away from it? We spend so much time thinking about what we don’t have, we forget to be grateful for all we have.

And these blessings are mostly on a natural plane. Could we ever fully appreciate God’s gifts of life, forgiveness, salvation, family, education, friendship, and more? Perhaps the real challenge is to live out of gratitude for the abundant miracles that surround us.

It’s exciting to be there when an attractive, bright, young leader launches a career—in politics, the church, education, whatever the arena. The audience sits up straight and says, “That is one to watch!”

So it must have been for those lucky enough to be around for the “calling” stories we hear in the gospels of this season, when Jesus begins his public ministry. In them, Jesus announces not the wrath of God, nor the triumph of God, nor the punishment of God, but the healing, freeing, feeding, tender touch of God.

And what of those who may not have heard Jesus initially, but would soon be dramatically affected by his healing power? The first was Peter’s mother-in-law. Rumors of that synagogue announcement might have penetrated her fever with a gleam of hope. Blind Bartimaeus, the woman bent double for eighteen years, the paralytic, the leper, the widow of Nain, those who would hear the Beatitudes and perhaps for the first time know blessing in what had seemed like unrelieved misery: all probably carried on their usual routines that day oblivious to huge change on the horizon.

What of us, today, who also seem distanced by time and space from the direct proclamation of gracious words? We may be just as unaware of what hovers seemingly out of reach.

To be continued…

The trouble with some Bible passages is overfamiliarity. We’ve heard them so often, they sound worn. We tune out, think about what’s for dinner, or yawn: “heard this before!”

So let’s reimagine Jesus’ words to the disciples today. Instead of “come and see,” he says, “Come fill out an application form with 734 questions in triplicate. Then sign the contracts. Ask your attorney to look over the paperwork. And get it all notarized.”

That whoosh you would’ve heard was the disciples running in the other direction. Bear in mind, these were uneducated fisherfolk. They wouldn’t have been impressed by military power or university degrees. They’d reject compulsion but respond to invitation. They were deeply compelled by the person of Jesus.

Try to remember the last time you were so excited about someone you ran to tell your friends, then praised this person so extravagantly, your friends couldn’t resist. They dropped what they were doing, abandoned their busy schedules, and checked out the reality. Did that happen  to the disciples?

Notice the angel Gabriel’s first word to Mary: “Rejoice.” Let’s remember it this week, which can be one of the most hectic in the year. The angel says, “rejoice.” [NAB] Not “spend. Clean. Cook. Decorate. Shop. Bake. Wrap. Shop again. Create the perfect holiday ambiance. Work to exhaustion. Make everyone in the family sublimely happy.”
In his Rule, St. Benedict says, “each day has reasons for joy.” Maybe at this time of year, they are more obvious. The shared belief of Christians is that Jesus has become one with humans, indeed has pitched his tent within us. None of us deserves this, so we celebrate God’s lavish abandon, the pure gratuity of God’s gift.
If this seems a tall order, if we’re too tired or depressed to rejoice, we can take heart from the ambiguity of the feast. Mary’s reaction to the angel is to be “much perplexed.” Indeed, the whole experience is for her a two-edged sword: joy tempered by natural, human fear.
This week, we’ll hear two songs of praise, Mary’s and Zechariah’s. Hers somehow overcomes the doubt and fear she must have felt. His breaks a long silence, welcomes new possibility, and expresses a hard-won trust in God—and his wife.

The people of John the Baptist’s day, like people today, would’ve expected any profound religious announcement to come in its proper place: from the rabbi in the synagogue. Instead, this unorthodox preacher appears in the Judean desert and attracts a crowd. People might be naturally suspicious. He certainly doesn’t use polite language, or worry about disturbing our comfort zones. Yet those too unsettled by this man in camel skin to pay attention might miss an important message. How sad to miss the Christ to whom John the Baptist points!
What unlikely prophets live among us? What surprising spirituality have we encountered where we least expected it? Did it come from someone too young to believe, or someone too oddly dressed to have credibility?

Especially if we’re self-righteous churchgoers, we need a herald like John to shake up our easy assumptions. We may not like the direction in which such leaders point, but their challenge upsets our own infallibility. It’s sadly easy to enshrine our personal opinions and make our preferences into little gods. In the spiritual life, some uncertainty and hesitancy, especially regarding our impeccable selves, is useful.