Father Mike Schmitz (0:00)

Someone asked me the other day, they said, how come it seems like in the Bible there are so many miracles happening all over the place, but God doesn't do miracles anymore? And I thought, that's a really great question. Hey, guys, one quick thing before we get started. Ascension is committed to creating media that helps Catholics grow in their faith and in their relationship with the Lord, which is why we put up videos like this every single week, completely free. These are only possible because of people like you who have supported Ascension's free media with both their prayers and with their financial gifts. So if you believe in this mission, or if you know someone who has been impacted by a video on this YouTube channel or any of Ascension's free media, please go to ascensionpress.comsupport and say your thanks. That's ascensionpress.comsupport thanks. Hi, my name's Father Mike Schmitz, and this is Ascension presents. How come it seems like there's miracles on every page of the Bible? And yet does God do. Still do miracles Today? I went to the Bible and said, wait, wait, how many miracles are there in the Bible? And, you know, depending on who you ask, there's something like 80, roughly 80 miracles in the Old Testament. And I don't know, between, like, I heard like 38 or up to 80 plus in the new Testament, depending on, I guess, how you're counting or how you're qualifying miracles. But to realize that's literally not on every page. I mean, even I. I've been thinking about this a lot lately. When the book of Exodus, when God appears to Moses, because Exodus has a ton of miracles, right? There's a. There's miracles in abundance when it comes to Exodus. But when God first reveals himself to Moses on the. On the mountain, right? The burning bush, like, wow, that's an incredible moment. You realize that came after 40 years of Moses being in the wilderness as a shepherd, which came after 40 years of Moses living in Egypt in the Prince of Egypt kind of situation. So Moses is 80 before the first time we ever see God speaking to Moses in a miraculous way. So it didn't happen every day of his life. I mean, after this, there were a bunch of miracles that happened in Moses life, but it was after 80 years of this one guy's life. And so this. This kind of like myth understanding. I said myth understanding, right? This myth that, oh, gosh, miracles are everywhere in the Old Testament, everywhere in the New Testament. Yes, they're there, but they're also relatively rare. Why? Because God has revealed himself in nature long before he Reveals himself in supernature. Here's what I mean.

Father Mike Schmitz (2:15)

Have you ever paused to.

Father Mike Schmitz (2:17)

To reflect on the fact or the question of why is there something rather than nothing? The fact that there is something is a sign that God exists. I know some people say, well, that's just an accident. It's cosmic dust, you know, all these kind of things. And yet you say like, that's a miracle. The fact that there is something rather than nothing is a miracle. Now, beyond that, we don't recognize that there are miracles. I don't know if you know this, but the Catholic Church has, has a pretty involved process when it comes to. Someone comes to the church and says, hey, I believe this miracle happened. And the church has a relatively involved process that investigates is this thing that happened or this thing that is claimed to have happened, is that actually a supernatural miracle from God? I was this last summer or May, whatever time it was, I got to go to Lourdes. Lourdes friends and Lourdes, you know, has dull story there, but there are like thousands of healings that have taken place in Lourdes. People show up on crutches and they walk away. People show up in wheelchairs and they walk away. People show up with cancer and they walk away cancer free. They said there's thousands and thousands of claimed healings, but only 70, I think 70, maybe 71 miracles that have been verified in Lourdes. So healings? Yeah. I came here with this kind of ailment. I'm leaving without this ailment. That's a healing. But 70ish times people have come there with an ailment of some sort. They've walked away without it. But they've also investigated it and it's been documented. I mean, they have a whole team of medical professionals who say, okay, if this is a claimed healing, in order to verify that it's a miracle, we have to make sure. We have to look at the files, right? Okay, this is the X ray, this is the mri. And now here's the new X ray, here's the new MRI with no intervening, like, you know, medical intervention. And then we have to investigate this more deeply to make sure, okay, this is not only supernatural, but it's also supernatural from the Lord. Miracles are happening all around. Now, I might not get the miracle and you might not get the miracle. So why would God sometimes do a miracle and sometimes not do a miracle? The short answer that I can offer is I don't know. What I do know is that if I don't get the miracle, it doesn't mean that God loves me less. If anyone doesn't get the miracle, it doesn't mean that they mean less to God. Why would God do a miracle? Well, we know God does those miracles to increase our faith. God does, sometimes does miracles to amplify the truth that we can trust Him. I mean, we think about it like this. You know, gosh, if I keep putting conditions on my. On my trust, I keep putting conditions on my faith. Okay, God, okay, I'm going to trust you. I'm going to believe in you. I'm going to belong to you if you give me this thing. That is a mercenary relationship. So God doesn't want us to fall into that mercenary relationship where I'm willing to give you my heart if you give me this thing. I'm willing to trust you with my life if you save my life or save the life of the person that I love. That is a mercenary exchange. God knows us better than we know ourselves. And he knows that, okay, this miracle, this miraculous answer to this prayer would be more of a trap for me than it would set me free. Because I know myself again. If God gives me a miracle once, I'm like, well, I'm coming back tomorrow. I want another one. He gives me another one, I'm coming back again. As opposed to what God wants, which is not just our belief, not just our ascent, or not just our acknowledging that he exists. What he desires is our love and not our love based off of a condition that he gave me what I want, but love, because he is who he is. He offers his love freely and he asks for us to give him our love freely. And if his giving a miracle would put me into this trap of I'm no longer free, then He, I'm guessing, won't give me the miracle. You know, I think that sometimes God doesn't give us the miracle so that we can know what love really looks like. Just like our parents, we can't go back to this. The image. Our parents sometimes say no because, well, they know it's better for us to not have the thing we're asking for. But also, at some point, they realize it's time to grow up and have a mature relationship where I don't just keep going back to mom or dad because they give me things. I come back to mom or dad because I love them. Sometimes God withholds the gifts so we can learn to love the giver. There's more. It's more complicated than this, and it's more involved in this. Of course, there's always new angles and other angles we can reflect on. But at the heart of this, we know this. We know that miracles did happen in the Bible. They do happen now, and sometimes they happen in your life and my life. But when they don't, it's an opportunity for us to trust. When the miracles don't happen in the life of someone I love, it's an opportunity for us to trust. When they don't happen in the life of someone that needs them. Maybe it's not only my opportunity to trust, maybe it's even then my opportunity to help. Where I can step in, where we can step in and say, okay, Jesus Christ is stepping in here in the sense of the body of Christ, the church. Fellow Christians are rising to the challenge and helping each other. Anyways, marvelous. Here at Ascension presents, My name is Father Mike. God bless.