Reflections of a Simple Priest

What do we think of when we think of a Miracle, I think we immediately think of something like the miracle at Fatima, where the sun dances in the sky, fireworks are going on and everyone .  That's what we expect when we think of a miracle.  We expect things to be flying around the room, booming voices from heaven, and all that goes with them. Today we hear two rather interesting stories, one in the old Testament, one in the Gospel.  Whenever we hear the stories in scripture, often they're modeled on older stories, but he gives them a new twist, makes them into something that no one was expecting.  Of course there are all sorts of stories of healings throughout the scriptures.  On the other hand, throughout history, even when we look at other faiths, even ancient mythology, there were all sorts of healings there too.  So when we think of that...it's good for us to take a moment and really ask...so what is special here.  What makes this story differ...

There's an old story about a boy walking along the shore of a beach.  On the beach, the tide was starting to go out.  The beach was lined with starfish.  As the boy walked along, he saw an old man.  The old man was picking up a fish, one at a time, and setting it back in the water.  So the boy ran up to the man and asked what he was doing.  The man said.  These starfish have washed ashore, if they don't get back in the water, they'll dry up and die.  The boy said, there are thousands of starfish on the beach, you can't possible make a difference here.  The old man calmly walked over to the next starfish, picked it up, set it in the water, and said…."it made a difference to that one" Isn't it amazing how we can choose to see things the way we want to see them.  When something is presented in front of us, we can decide how we choose to see it.  Sometimes we can get lost in how big the world is, how things seem to be crashing d...