13th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B) - 30 June
30th June 2024
“The greater and more persistent your confidence in God, the more abundantly you will receive all that you ask.” - St Albert the Great
A reflection on today's Gospel reading by the Venerable Archbishop Fulton J Sheen:
"Our Lord worked many miracles and here are some of the characteristics about them. He worked them as signs to convince men of the fact that He who came to work these miracles was the One who was promised. He never worked a miracle to amaze a multitude. He never worked a miracle to satisfy His hunger or thirst. He never worked a miracle to obtain a living. He never received money for the things which He accomplished. He refused to convert the stones of the wilderness into bread to satisfy His own hunger or to cause water to gush out of a rock to slake His thirst; instead, He asked a woman to let down her bucket to give Him a drink.
"Our Lord explained why He worked miracles. He said, If I act like the Son of My Father, then let My actions convince you where I cannot so you will recognise and learn to believe that the Father is in Me and I in Him. (John 10:38) And on another occasion He said, The actions which My Father has enabled Me to achieve, those very actions which I perform, bear Me witness that it is the Father Who has sent Me. (John 5:36) If it were God’s will to give a revelation, miracles would be well fitted to certify and guarantee the message as true. If a miracle occurs in connection with a word or act of a person who professes to deliver a revelation from God, the coincidence proclaims the divine approval of both the teacher and the message. The miracles were seals which God set upon His revelation of Christ as His divine Son. If Jesus shows it is by His own power He works a miracle, He proves Himself to be Lord of the universe and to be God.
"Another characteristic of the recorded miracles of our blessed Lord is that there is nothing unreasonable in any of them. They were subject to the tests of everyone. The vast majority of the miracles never took place in the secret places of people’s lives but in what might be called the physical world where they could be verified scientifically. Our Lord never performed a miracle unless there were witnesses present. When He healed the leper there was a great multitude following Him. In the healing of the Centurion’s servant, He did not even go where the servant was dying. When He raised Peter’s mother-in-law from her sick bed, the Apostles and others were present. Our Lord never went up into a mountain to perform some miracle alone with no person being present, and then come out saying He had done it. His works were accomplished before the eyes of multitudes of people, and that is why none of the miracles of our blessed Lord were ever actually denied, not even His Resurrection. The Apostles were forbidden to teach it, but the miracles were never denied.
"His miracles are inseparable from His person. They differed from prophets and others since theirs were an answer to a prayer granted by a higher power. His flowed from the majestic life resident in Him. In his gospel, St. John calls them signs or works, meaning they were the sort of thing that might be expected from Him, being what He was. They were evidences of His divine revelation; they were even more for they testified to His redemptive action as the Saviour of the world. By healing the palsied, lame, and blind, Christ clothed His power with visible form to cure spiritual diseases. Physical diseases were symbols of that which was spiritual. He often passed from the physical fact of a miracle to its symbolic and spiritual meaning; for example, blindness was a symbol of blindness to the light of faith. By casting devils from those who were possessed, He pointed out His victory over the powers of evil whereby men would be freed from slavery to evil and restored to moral liberty.
"If you expel miracles from the life of Christ you destroy the identity of Christ and the gospels."
(Your Life is Worth Living)
Act of Faith
O My God, I firmly believe that Thou art one God in Three Divine Persons, Father, Son and Holy Ghost. I believe that Thy Divine Son became Man, and died for our sins, and that He will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe these and all the truths which the Holy Catholic Church teaches, because Thou hast revealed them, Who can neither deceive nor be deceived. Amen. 💐💖🙏