Homily: Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time: 2007

Dear brothers and sisters, when my son heard the following story, he said, "The best way to evangelize is by the witness of a good life." Amen.

A woman I know told me how she came into the Church. She had resisted becoming a Catholic for many years. She was a Buddhist, she was happy being a Buddhist, all her ancestors were Buddhist, and even though she had been extensively taught the Catholic faith by strict and loving nuns, she had problems with some points of Catholic dogma and discipline. But years later, many years after she had attended the convent school, she returned in grateful thanks to the nuns, especially one nun who'd loved her unconditionally. "I want to do something to honor you. Tell me what you want and I will do it," she said. And the sister replied, "I want you to pray for me each day and I want you, my dear, to become a Catholic." And so, as a 33-year-old adult, she became Catholic. Any doctrinal difficulties she may have had fell away in the face of such luminous, powerful and timely love from the example of that one sister's life. And my friend never regretted it, never looked back, and treated her disapproving family with goodness and respect, even bringing them out of an impossible life in their country into the US. Wonderful.

What of miracles? Do miracles happen? Well, in the above story, my friend experienced what she considered a miracle: that of her rigid, patrician mother totally changing her mind and attitude . . . and at age 60, when most folks are firmly set in their ways. My friend knows it was a miracle, because she prayed specifically for it, offered great penances for it, even changed her ways for it, and was struck one day with her mother's loving acceptance and forgiveness. But there are other miracles; I've seen them in my own life. My son says: "Everyone has had miracles in their lives, things they could not explain any other way." Even my husband's seen them in his own life. He should have died on an oil rig when a 300-lb. chain fell from the top of the rig; had he been standing 2 inches forward of where he was, he would have. When a steel pipe did fall on his head right between his eyes, he could have died, or at least been severely injured, but he was not. When a cable car in San Francisco lost its grip and plummeted backwards into another car -- and he was just hanging on the back -- he should have been crushed to death between them, but he wasn't. I like to think he was spared so we could meet and have our four beautiful children.

Others may attribute such stories to coincidence, but coincidence after coincidence? There comes a time when it just stretches credulity. And it goes beyond the dramatic to the commonplace. What if my husband and I had never met? What if I hadn't turned down that one job and accepted the position at the college we both attended? What if he hadn't just broken up with his girlfriend? Lots of things like that. Everyone has something like that in their own lives. I attribute mine to God. After all, why should God limit miracles just to the time of the apostles? Doesn't he still have work to do? Doesn't he still need laborers for the field? Doesn't he still desire signs? Signs such as Paul's "mark of Jesus on [his] body" which some regard as the stigmata: one or more of the wounds of Jesus such as he experienced during the Passion and at the crucifixion. Signs such as curing the sick. Protection from bodily harm. But don't rejoice in these miracles, even if they are dramatic and powerful, but in your salvation, He says. And so should we.