A (0:01)

Hello again, everyone, and welcome back to the Peter's Boat podcast and this episode of the Monday After. Looking forward to speaking with you today. A little bit about some miracles and signs that are taking place in the world around us even now. But in particular, like what a sign is something that we can see happening and then interpret so that God can speak a word to us through it. Does that make sense? So we're saying it this way because yesterday we celebrated the Feast of the Epiphany, when the Magi, the three Kings or three wise men, they follow this star which they perceive to be a sign to them of some great event happening on the earth, perhaps the birth of a king. It's this star, brightly shining in the night sky, which comes to rest over Bethlehem. And as they do follow it to its place, they find the child Jesus there with the blessed mother and St. Joseph. And the child Jesus becomes to them a sign that, that God himself has been looking for us, that he's seeking us out. And they recognize this. And talking with Our lady and St. Joseph about this child, they then give the child gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, which are themselves signs. They believe him to be king, so they give him gold. They believe him to be God with us, Emmanuel. So they give him frankincense in recognition of his divinity. And they believe him also to be one born to die for our salvation. So they give him myrrh for his burial. But the gifts themselves were signs, a word that they wanted to speak to the child Jesus. And then they're even warned in a dream not to return to Herod. So they interpret that dream as a sign or a word from God to be careful about Herod, who's going to seek the life of the child and may harm you, and they depart for their country by another way, as the scriptures say. And so that in itself is a sign to us of how their lives were changed after having met Christ and how God wants this for us, too. So this is a little podcast, little episode here on Signs, how God can speak to us through things that are happening in the world right now. So here's a little word of warning or caution to you, an invitation to a little extra discernment about whether you want to share this particular episode with a family member or a friend, remembering that talk about miracles and signs can create some distance sometimes between us and people that we're trying to be closer to. You know, I'm trying to say it nicely, but like some people think we're already crazy. For believing in God in the first place or wanting to be religious, talking about miracles with them can sometimes only increase that gap. You know the expression that for someone who believes, no explanation is necessary, but for one who does not have faith, no explanation is possible. Remember, it's like the gift of faith is given to us by God. The best that we can do is try to till the soil of a person's heart so that they could be open to receiving that gift, or touch their life in such a way where their heart opens and then God can get in. Christ himself said it, if you love one another, this is how they will know that you are my disciples. So sacrificial love and service attention that can so touch a heart that that heart might be open to receiving the gift of faith. But even Christ himself said something like, these people won't believe even if someone were to be raised from the dead. So miracles don't necessarily create faith as much as they can confirm and strengthen it. So signs to me are more than just like miracles. They're a word that God can speak to us through the thing that we see happening. And we'll end here with a word about some of the signs that we see in the Gospels. But here we can talk first about some things that have happened in the times in which we live, which were ways that God has been trying to communicate his life to us and say something to us. So a few examples of some more well known miracles and then a couple of examples of a miracle that happened here in the parish and then one in my own life. Okay. Which I perceive to be a sign, a word that God was speaking to me about a friend of mine. So first I mentioned this on Christmas as well, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. And I started yesterday with this as an example, I think the existence of the Jewish people. Even after Christ has come to us and redeemed the world through his death on the cross and his resurrection, the Jews continue to exist. And people might say, well that's because they're obstinate, hard hearted and they're stiff necked, they deny Christ. But that's not fair because we're also hard hearted sometimes and we're stiff necked and we deny Christ sometimes. So there can't be like a way to define them as a people. And I'm not talking about Netanyahu's politics, I'm not talking about the state of Israel, right? But the fact that the Jewish people continue to exist. Why would God allow that? Well, perhaps it's a sign to us of how our humanity continues to exist. Even as Christ has come redeemed the world and salvation has come, our humanity, always in need of redemption, continues to exist. And that reminds me of how Christ said, I have not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. And I look at the Jewish people and I see God saying to us through them, I have not come to abolish your humanity, but to fulfill it. Just the existence and the enduring presence of this people reminds me that salvation is not the eradication of my past. It's not the cancel culture, it's the redemption of my past. Nor is it the artificial controlling of my future to ensure that no tough things will happen to me. Man, the Jews continue to suffer all the time. And I realize that, oh, I will too. But that doesn't mean that salvation has not come to me. It means he's with me in my suffering, redeeming it. So that's one way to interpret, like the sign of the Jews. But then, how about this? I know you're probably expecting this, but like a word about Our lady, the Blessed Mother and her apparitions during this modern era, the times in which we live, when the Blessed Mother appears to children, visionaries, a lot of times miracles accompany this as signs to us to confirm the event, but also that God might speak a word to us through this, so that it's not just something happening, but rather something communicating to us. So I think about. I mentioned 1531, Our lady of Guadalupe when she appeared to Juan Diego, that long lasting, enduring sign of Our Lady's motherly intercession imprinted on the cactus hair Tilma of Juan Diego. But then also Our lady of Fatima, when she appears in fatima, Portugal, in 1917, when 70,000 people came to the field where the three shepherd children said, the Blessed Mother will give you a sign that she is really appearing to us and calling us to pray the rosary for the conversion of the world and for our own salvation. It was a rainy, cold, wet day. Everyone was muddy and soaking wet. And they thought that they had been duped. They thought this was a lie. These children are crazy. But then the sun appears, right? And they see the sun and they think that's the miracle because it was cloudy and rainy. But then the sun begins to spin and emanate colors, and they thought, wow. And now it's got their attention and it begins to pulsate and then actually move closer and closer and closer to the earth, where they were afraid and thought that the sun was going to destroy the earth. But Then, in a moment, the sun was restored to its place in the sky. The sky was perfectly blue and clear, and everyone was dry and clean. That's the miracle of the Son, but also a sign that God was speaking to us through this, to say, you can pray to my mother, the Blessed Mother, pray that rosary, and my son will have a fixed place in your life again that can restore you, clean you, you know, heal you, and free you from fear or terror. So trust my mother's intercession, love my son Jesus, and all will be well for you, even in the trying times in which you live. So again, a miracle, yes, but also like a sign. And even as we talk about Ned Goria from time to time, where the Blessed Mother appeared in the old Yugoslavia, now Bosnia Herzegovina, in 1981, to the six children, when people visit this shrine today, and I've been there a number of times myself, and. And I've never seen this miracle myself, but many people do. They see the sun spinning in the sky, or they can look directly at the sun without having to look away. And the sun appears to them to be like a host, the Blessed Sacrament. What a beautiful sign. Because although it is this miracle that could distract us and just impress us, God can speak a word to us through that. And even Our lady saying, do not be afraid to look at my son. He will not blind you. He will help you to see. He will not hurt you. And as the Son often appears as a Eucharist, a Eucharistic host in the Blessed Sacrament, you can hear God saying, adore my son in the Blessed Sacrament. Look at him. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And even the first time Our lady appeared in Medjugorje was on the feast of St. John the Baptist, again, who said, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. So when people visit Medjugorje to this day, they can look at the sun sometimes and just behold what looks like the Blessed Sacrament. But behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Oh, speaking of the Eucharist, then, Eucharistic miracles, that's the term given to these times when the host perhaps might bleed. And then when the priest or people invite scientists to look at the actual experience, scientists will find striated heart muscle or heart tissue of a young man who would have died in duress, right. When they examine this host that has become flesh. And then the blood itself is always type ab, a rare blood type, but is the universal recipient. So these Eucharistic miracles are amazing, and they get our attention. But more than that, they're a sign, perhaps, through which God says in the Eucharist is my own heart, the heart of my son Jesus, beating with love for all humanity as a universal recipient, come to him. So again, miracle. Yep. Sign. If we allow it to speak a word to us. Gemma Digiorgi. Gemma Digiorgi, I think, was born in 1940 at seven years, no pupils, and blind at seven years old. She's brought to Saint Padre Pio, as many, many people were. And Padre Pio heard her confession, gave her communion and said a blessing over her, made the sign of the cross on her forehead, and little Gemma was able to see, even though she still had no pupils and to this day, can see. I believe she's still alive. You can correct me if I'm wrong about that. And she can see all right. An amazing miracle. Many people were healed, touched by Padre Pio, Gemma in particular, and in a powerful way, I think, as a sign to us of how God is saying saints like my beloved son, Padre Pio can help you to see with such clarity that I love you with such greatness and such mercy that you have nothing to be afraid of. And you can trust him when he says to you, pray, hope, and don't worry. You know, this is what God wants us to be able to see. After visiting with a saint like Saint Padre Pio and Gemma digiorgi is in the embodiment of this kind of spirituality, of someone who's devoted to Padre Pio, someone who'll be able to see the goodness of life, our own dignity, and also to see with the gift of faith in a way that the world might not be able to understand. Like a girl seeing even though she has no pupils. It's amazing, right? But powerful word. And Padre Pio himself, like his spiritual father, St Francis of Assisi, remember, Padre Pio was Franciscan. They both received the stigmata. Now, those are the wounds of Christ crucified that mysteriously, miraculously appeared on the bodies of these men while they were still living, causing them great pain and discomfort and, I guess you'd say, humiliation. It's very humbling for these men. In any case, it was assigned to us, God saying to us through them, see how these beloved sons of mine have conformed themselves to my son Jesus. And not just Jesus, but Christ crucified in particular, where he says, this is my body given up for you, my blood poured out for you. This is what God wants for all of us, that we would conform ourselves to Christ crucified, meaning making a gift of ourselves for one another to become a sign for one another of the love of God in this world. You know, like at Mass, when we say to each other, peace be with you, what does the church invite us to say? The church rather invites us by saying, let us offer each other the sign of peace to be a sign to each other of God's peace by saying, peace be with you. And that's what Christ says to us on the cross. Peace be with you. It's mercy and forgiveness, which alone brings peace into the world. Okay, so two more examples. The one is of something that happened last year here in the parish. There's a grandmother in the parish who was praying for her two grandsons, as she does all the time. They're older, and she prays that they will always stay together with each other and stay close to God and to the church. And one night, she was praying with the one set of rosaries given to her by the one grandson and another set of rosaries given to her by the other grandson. She was holding them both, praying the rosary for them. And she fell asleep, as she probably does from time to time, you know, as we all do when we pray the rosary at night. She fell asleep with the rosaries on her heart like this. And she woke up in the morning to find that they were intertwined, not tangled together, but that their loops had intertwined so that they almost seemed to have been made like that. And neither of the links, none of the links on the rosaries were opened. It was inexplicable as to how they were united. When she came to show me, I said, this might be a miracle. She was, I think so, Father. And I said, let's call some magicians to see if it's possible to even intertwine two closed loops like this. And she did. She called some magicians, and they all said, no, it's impossible to intertwine or connect two closed loops. They all said, like even that ring trick, where you see the rings come together, is because there is an opening in the rings, and the magician knows where the opening is. But there is no opening on these rosaries. I did report it to the diocese, record it with the church, and they would say, yes, it seems to be that God has given a sign to this woman to. To confirm her faith, to be a sign to her, perhaps, of what God wants to say to her. That I will hold your grandsons together and united to the church. If you keep them always like in your heart, I will Keep them always together with one another and with me. The Lord might be saying to her, so again, a miracle. Yeah. But sign. If we allow it to be an occasion of God speaking a word to us. Okay, I want to share something here that I've never shared before. It came to me after preaching yesterday, and I'll say it simply and a little quickly because it's something very dear to me. And I'm trying to reverence the memory of my old best friend. He did take his life. It was after college and I had heard that he was losing his job, he was divorcing, and he was losing his home. He had also gotten sick. He had terrible health problems, too. So nothing was easy for him ever. And then things got very, very difficult and he did despair of life altogether. Well, I'll share with you that I had gone to Rome with him. I went as a. We gave ourselves a graduation gift from high school. We went to Europe and took the tgv, the high speed French train from Florence up to Amsterdam, actually. And in any case, on that trip, we went to Rome and went to St. Peter's but we couldn't get into St. Peter's on that day. And I was always like, oh, well, the next time I was able to go back to Rome, I was a priest and I was so happy. And I was thinking about my friend the whole time, like, oh, I'm going to call him when I get home and tell him that I was able to get into St. Peter's and so on that day, I was able actually to say Mass in St. Peter's at the tomb of St. Peter, the Clementine altar underneath St. Peter's Basilica. One of the greatest blessings I've received in my lifetime. And I offered that Mass for my friend. Then I mentioned my friend to the priest that I was there with and, you know, just reminiscing with gratitude for his goodness. And I said, let's pray for him. He's not in a. He's going through some tough stuff. And then in any case, before I came home, we were also able to Visit John Paul II's tomb. And I had rosaries in my pocket that I touched to John Paul II's tomb that day. All right, so I'm coming home from Rome intent on calling my friend to tell him, hey, I miss you. I haven't talked to you in a while. Have you been? I offered Mass for you when I went back to St Peter's the place we tried to get into years ago but couldn't. And I. Anyway, Just want to see. Well, I came home to a phone message that he had taken his life on the day when I offered mass for him at St. Peter's so I went to the wake, and I was asked to say prayers of the wake and then to celebrate his funeral Mass. So here I am coming home. You gotta understand, I hadn't talked to him in a while. So it was also amazing that there was such a connection in the hour of his death, because, I mean, it had been years since we'd spoken. In any case, I went to the wake and I looked at his hands in the casket, and I noticed that there were no rosaries on the hand. He's a Catholic, but he did call himself, for many years, like an agnostic. Nothing aggressively atheistic or ugly. He was a very, very good man. But I knew he wasn't really practicing the religion or anything like that, but he was a Catholic. No rosaries, though. And I said, oh, to his mother, I said, I just had these rosaries touched to John Paul II's tomb on the day he died. Can I put these rosaries on his hands? And she said, yes, of course. So I put them around his hands, and they're with him to this day, like in his. In his coffin. And all right. So that, to me, was a sign that God was with him, that Our lady and John Paul ii, you know, patron saint of our generation, who was critical of the culture of death which steals a man's hope and faith, but would nonetheless promise us that Our Lady's prayers are powerful and that no one is lost to our Blessed Mother's intercession. So again, rosaries touched to John Paul II's tomb. Place with my friend in his own tomb. And yet there's still another sign. A couple weeks later, I met with his mother and some friends over dinner just to say, you know, how you doing? The mother said, I have something for you. And before we left, she said, I want you to have these. She gave me rosaries. And I said, oh. I said, oh. She said, I found them in his upper drawer. Now, he moved a lot, this friend of mine, but he must have taken those rosaries with him all the time wherever he went, because they were with him to the end. And then she said, I want you to have them. And I said, you know what? I know where he got these rosaries. He bought these rosaries when we were in Rome together. Imagine. So I had rosaries touched to John Paul II's tomb on the day that he died and was able to put them into his coffin, on his hands, with him now in the grave. And then his mother gave me rosaries that Dave bought when we were in Rome together, when we tried to go to St. Peter's but we couldn't. And so he switched with rosaries, traded rosaries at the end of life, you know, bless the mother, like keeping us together. And I believe, speaking a word to me, saying that he will not be lost, and he will not be lost, you know. So here are my last words about signs and their references to the Gospel itself. When Christ gives sight to a man who is blind, he wants us to see by the gift of faith and to see the goodness of life and the possibility of a relationship with God through mystery and sacraments. So he gives sight to the one who would not be otherwise able to see, to show us what faith can accomplish in our own lives. When he enables the man who is deaf to hear again. Christ is showing us that he wants us, by his grace and our relationship with him in prayer, to be able to hear how God speaks to us, maybe perhaps not with our ears, but with our heart, and to perceive him through signs, the word that he speaks to us. When he raises the paralyzed men, you can see he wants to help us who feel so laid low, to be able to rise and walk and to serve, you know, that he can lift up the person who is despairing or depressed. Of course, when he raises people from the dead, he's showing us why he came to earth in the first place, to save us from the tomb, to call us forth like he calls Lazarus forth, to give us life eternal then. And lastly, when he gives Himself to us as the bread of life, he foreshadows that mystery with the multiplication of the loaves. And people came back to him when he multiplied the loaves on the hillside, they wanted more bread. And Jesus was like, I wish you could see the sign that this is meant to be for you. I, he says, am the bread of life. You know, even if you die, you will live if you eat my flesh and drink my blood. Come to me, he says, you who are hungry, thirsty. So when he multiplies the loaves, it's meant to be a sign to us of what he wants to be for us, even as he had us break up in little groups of about 50, kind of foreshadowing the parish and what a church community might be for one another, and having the apostles distribute the loaves, the way a priest can go to a smaller group of people, that they might experience the miracle together, to share the Eucharist together so that he wasn't just doing something for the crowd as much as like offering something to each of us to draw us closer to one another. Like having us break up into small groups of 50 was so that we didn't feel like he was just doing it for humanity but doing this for us. You know, that we could look to each other and say isn't this wonderful? And that little bonds of affection were formed between these small groups within the larger group. But that's what the church is throughout the world. So I think that's that's about everything I wanted to share with you today about that's a lot I know and I appreciate your your own friendship and attention. I hope it's good for you to think about signs in this way and there's much more to say but perhaps that's enough for this week and as always I wish you a peaceful and prayerful week. God bless. Sam.