No time for miracles?

Maybe this isn’t a particularly good time to be talking about the miracle of Christmas. And for lots of reasons:

Despite calls for peace by people of faith, war is bearing down on Iraq—and it may not stop there.

Perhaps the most powerful Catholic in the United States, Cardinal Law, has resigned in disgrace.

The economy is in shambles, with Christmas layoffs looming for many, including workers in places like Sears and Dominick’s.

Social service agencies—church-run and others—are scrambling to do more with less to help ease the economic fallout.

There’s more, too. It’s not a pretty picture.

No, this definitely seems like it’s not a good time to talk about the miracle of Christmas.

But on the other hand, perhaps those are precisely the reasons we should be talking about miracles. Because that’s the problem with miracles; the less we need them, the more likely we are to miss them.

I’m supposed to be something of an expert—if there is such a thing—on miracles, at least the not-so-theological kind. I’ve been lucky enough to have heard the stories of thousands of people who believed they experienced such things. Many of those tales found their way into a couple of books I’ve written. One, with a Christmas twist, appeared in “Small Miracles: the Extraordinary Stories of Ordinary People Touched by God,” (Zondervan).

Today, surrounded by war, conflict, fear, hunger as we are, this is as good a time as any to share it. (It’s also one I also shared by invitation recently in a parish newsletter.)

It goes like this:

When Eleanor’s daughter was born a month before Christmas a half-century ago, there was a small growth on her face. The doctor diagnosed a clogged tear duct. Massage it gently, he told her family.

But the spot quickly became a lump, turned black and grew across the infant’s forehead, obstructing one of her eyes.

The family was horribly worried. So, too, was the doctor. On the day before Christmas he told them he’d have to operate right after the holiday. On Christmas Day, the celebration was muted as the family prayerfully girded for the surgery.

The morning after Christmas, as Eleanor lifted the tiny child out of her crib, she was shocked: the lump and the discoloration were gone; both her eyes were wide and laughing. “What a beautiful sight,” Eleanor said.

The doctor would only say: It’s amazing; I have no explanation.” But Eleanor did. “God heard us in our need and gave us our Christmas miracle.”

It’s a temptation to say there was no miracle, only an unexplained medical phenomenon. But as we approach Christmas, celebrating the unexplainable and miraculous God-made-man, there’s another perspective: A miracle isn’t necessarily what happens. It’s whether we are able to see in what happens the hand of a loving God.

Not all such miracles are so apparent; some may seem quite ordinary. For instance, many people collect toys for needy children during the Christmas season. But students at Mother Guerin High School, River Forest, managed to turn the effort into a sort of near-miraculous over-achievement. They organized a toy drive involving 60 other schools, churches, youth groups and assorted other groups and individuals. The result was 10,000 gifts collected and distributed.

A miracle? Probably not—unless you were one of the children who received a toy you weren’t anticipating.

Christmas is not just a child in a manger; it’s the miracle of God intervening in our lives. But that only happens for us when we recognize it.

From the staff of The Catholic New World, from our homes to yours, Merry Christmas. And may your miracles come true.

Tom Sheridan
Editor and General Manager