In this weekend’s gospel, we hear of Jesus healing a man born deaf.  It is these miracle stories that stand out and figure predominantly in our imagination of who Jesus was and what he was on about.  Indeed, you could be forgiven for thinking that miracles played the central part in Jesus’ message and ministry. That would be a mistake!  Jesus was fully aware of the risk of being seen by the people as simply a miracle worker.  That is why, from next weekend’s gospel, suddenly and without warning Jesus will say to the disciples, “The Son of Man is to be handed over to men and they will kill him, and three days after his death the Son of Man will rise”. Jesus, whom the people saw as quick fixer of their health and other earthly concerns, will now concentrate on the cross and all that it implies.

At the heart of this new focus on the cross is the message about God’s love for us and the relationship which is being  offered.  If we are honest with ourselves, all of us will acknowledge our struggle to identify and deepen that relationship.  We’re not the first from Augustine to Mary MacKillop and all the saints in between; the one constant is the struggle to understand and respond to this relationship.

I don’t know about you, but when I hear other people’s faith journey I sometimes get envious that they have all the ingredients of a great story.  Like the miracle worker, somehow Jesus has stepped in and changed their lives.  My life and story here on the Sunshine Coast  is just too pedestrian for that to happen to me!

That would also be a mistake.  Like all those, who I think have a great faith story to tell, it began with a simple realisation that we don’t have to find God, God is always present.  Indeed, the secret to prayer is not to try to make God present, but to make ourselves present to God. The problem of presence is not with God, but with us.  But how can we be present to God if we start from the position that our lives are just so dull, mundane and predictable?

The poet, Rainer Maria Rilke, who died in 1926, struggled with the difficulty of belief in an age of disbelief and profound anxiety.  At the height of his fame, he was once contacted by a young man from a small, provincial town. The young man expressed his admiration for Rilke’s poetry and told him that he envied him, envied his life in a big city, and envied a life so full of insight and richness. He went on to describe how his own life was uninteresting, provincial, small-town, too dull to inspire insight and poetry. Rilke’s answer was not sympathetic. He told the young man: “If your life seems poor to you, then tell yourself that you are not poet enough to see and call forth its riches. There are no uninteresting places, no lives that aren’t full of the stuff for poetry. What makes for a rich life is not so much what is contained within each moment, since all moments contain what’s timeless, but sensitive insight and presence to that moment.“

Like beauty and love and the true riches of life, God is always present.  Our own individual faith journey has all the ingredients of a great story and, at the heart of it, is the realisation that we don’t have to find God, God is always present.

Karl Rahner, the influential German theologian who played such a prominent role in the Second Vatican Council, was once asked whether he believed in miracles. His answer: ” I don’t believe in them, I rely on them to get through each day!“ Indeed, miracles are always present within our lives.  Are we?

Wishing you every blessing for the week ahead,

Fr Peter Brannelly