“In a word: to get to know Him and to get to know yourself: to get acquainted.” (Saint Josemaría).
I have been thinking about miracles today.
It is one thing for my prayers to be answered and quite another for me to be granted a miracle.
What is a miracle? It is a thing that is possible only through divine intervention. When my little niece was very very sick and she was finally healed, it was a wonderful blessing that she was healed, but it was not a miracle, because there was always a chance that she would be healed – despite the complexities of the surgery and all the complications. I do not say this because I am ungrateful for the blessings that we received through the healing of that child, I say this because it is a fact.
When my little niece was healed a few years ago, the miracle was not her physical recovery. The miracle is not her health today. The miracle is that the prayers that were prayed for her healing helped me. And perhaps they helped others who prayed for her too.
You see, when I prayed my prayers for that little girl – that precious soul – I was asking God to heal her. But actually, God was hearing the hidden prayers inside my heart. And as he healed my little niece physically, He healed me spiritually. One of the priests who prayed with us for that child said to me, “God is healing hearts – that child’s and ours.”
And though it was a truly terrible time, it was also the best of all times because during that terrible suffering – for it is terrible suffering to watch people we love suffer (particularly innocent little children) – God was holding me. And I felt His touch in everything in my life…
And so, I was reflecting on the healing of the Blind Beggar Bartimaeus I considered the true miracle…
“Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside. And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’ And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent; but he cried out all the more, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me!’ And Jesus stopped and said, ‘Call him.’ And they called the blind man, saying to him, ‘Take heart; rise, He is calling you.’ And throwing off his mantle he sprang up and came to Jesus. And Jesus said to him, ‘What do you want Me to do for you?’ And the blind man said to Him, ‘Master, let me receive my sight.’” (Mark 10:46-52).
For when Bartimaeus stopped Christ on the road, Christ stopped to listen to him and asked, “‘What do you want Me to do for you?’”…
And now, when I consider all that God has done for me, it occurs to me that when He stopped in the road to ask “‘What do you want Me to do for you?’”, He listened not to the words coming out of my mouth – but to the hurt inside my heart…
And I have been reflecting on that because Saint Josemaría said, “To pray is to talk to God, but about what? About Him, about yourself; joys, sorrows, successes, and failures, noble ambitions, daily worries, weaknesses! And acts of thanksgiving and petitions: and Love and reparation. In a word: to get to know Him and to get to know yourself: to get acquainted.”
And that makes me think – I really am blessed with miracles beyond my ken…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
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