By Fr. Roy Cimagala
THOSE are words that come from the Book of Isaiah. (35,4) Those words are most worthwhile to be repeated as often as possible to reassure us that whatever happens in our life, with all the heavy drama that it brings, God, our Father, will surely come to save us.
We should not waste time fretting and worrying over whatever negative things can take place in our life. We should rather be quick to enliven our faith where we always find hope and resume living in charity, which is the best condition our life is meant to be in.
If we are truly living an authentic Christian life, based on our Christian faith, we would have every reason to live in total confidence and joy. Despite the crosses and suffering that are unavoidable in our life, we would know that victory over them is assured as long as we go through them with Christ, our Savior, who offers us “the way, the truth, and the life” that is proper to us.
It’s really just a matter of faith, a matter of choice of whom to believe and to rely on—God who is omnipotent and merciful, or ourselves only. We should do everything to rev up our faith, especially in those moments when we find ourselves in some severe challenges and trials. With a strong faith, miracles can happen, the impossible becomes possible.
Yes, faith is needed for miracles to happen. We have to be clear about this point. For miracles to happen, especially the most important one which is our own salvation that involves the forgiveness of our sins, faith is needed. This was dramatized in that gospel episode where Christ was presented with a paralytic lying on a stretcher. (cfr. Lk 5,17-26)
Nowadays, many people claim that miracles do not happen anymore. They say miracles only took place in the distant past, the time of the gospel when Christ went around in the land of Judea and Galilee. But now, miracles are considered obsolete, if not an anomaly.
This is like saying that Christ, the son of God who became man, has ceased intervening in our lives, that he was purely a historical man, subject to time and space, and that after death, he is simply no more, completely wrapped in the spiritual world, if ever that exists, and that he has no immediate and tangible impact on our lives.
We have to be clear about this point. Christ is always around and is actively intervening in our lives, directing and leading us to our proper end, in spite of our very erratic ways. He can never be indifferent to us, and is willing to suffer and die for us just to save us. Precisely he came as an expiation for our sins. He is the one who pays for our sins. All we have to do is just to try to go along with him in the best way we can.
So, we have to be clear about the truth that miracles are meant more to forgive our sins and for our salvation rather than just curing an ailment, and that we have to be wary of our tendency to be disbelieving.
To address this tendency of ours to be disbelieving, we have to be humble to be able to receive what is told to us by faith. We have to realize that our life, being a life with God and therefore is supernatural, needs to be lived by faith more than just by our reason alone.
Email: roycimagala@gmail.com
