Expect Miracles

I can honestly say those words have changed my entire outlook on life. I was commanded to BE AUDACIOUS in what can only be described as an off-the-record remark at a LifeTeen training conference.

My first response? I AM AUDACIOUS. I’M SO AUDACIOUS. I SMELL of audacity. No, I REEK of audacity! It's in my blood. It's in my veins. I’M THE VERY DEFINITION OF AUDACITY.

That was pride talking. Then, just as quickly as it flared up, my pride was shattered.

Have a read of this:

On the third day there was a marriage at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there; Jesus also was invited to the marriage, with his disciples. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “O woman, what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” (John 2:1-5)

Nothing stick out to you? Read it again, and again (and again!).

'The Mother of Jesus was there; Jesus was also there.'

Let’s think about that for a minute. Put it in modern terms.

CNN REPORTS: ‘The concert was a huge event! The mother of Taylor Swift was there, and Taylor Swift was also there.’

What St. John did is the modern day equivalent of CNN making the superstar a side note at her own concert and focussing on her mother being there to encourage and watch. Instead of leading the story with the Lord of Heaven and Earth (whose ‘glory was manifested’ by the end of the account), John made Mary the focus. Is this not ridiculous? Is it not strange? Mary became the centre of the story of Jesus’ first public miracle! In fact, John calls this a ‘sign.’ Hold up, Mary was the focus of the first public sign that points to the fact that Jesus is God? Does this not show us how pivotal she is? Does it not highlight to us the importance of her role here?

Why was she the focus of John’s story? Because she was the reason the miracle was performed. BECAUSE OF HER AUDACITY.

Our Lady didn’t ASK Jesus if they should do anything. She told him what the problem was and EXPECTED that her Son would perform a miracle. She didn’t hesitate. She didn’t doubt. She didn’t even consider (even though she knew!) that Him revealing His glory would bring forward the hour of His passion. SHE WAS AUDACIOUS.

Expect miracles.

How many times do we go to Jesus and tell Him what is lacking? How many times do we say ‘I have no wine’ and actually EXPECT (rather than simply wish) that He will perform a miracle in our life?

We need to imitate her in all things. We need to go to Jesus and tell Him we have no wine. THEN, even when our obstacles hit us square in the face, we need to hand him our stone jar filled with water and KNOW that He will fix it. We need to tell Him that we will do whatever He tells us.

See, rather than Our Lady simply submitting, her instruction to ‘do whatever He tells you’ is a statement of faith. Let me make this easier to understand. For all the Maronites – don’t forget she was a Middle Eastern mother! I know from experience that when my mother tells me to do something (or even if she hints it), she expects that I will do it. When I tell her I can’t, her response ‘do whatever you want’ is not a submission – it’s a command! What she is really saying is ‘make your mother happy. If you love your mother, you will do this.’

Boy, did He love her. He loved everything about her, and she was far from a damsel in distress, she was perfect – and man, was she AUDACIOUS.

He loves us, too. He loves us beyond our wildest contemplations. I’ve said it before: His plans are unimaginable, inexplicable.They make our wildest human reveries look like fairy tales written by Ebenezer Scrooge.

Expect miracles. Don’t simply tell Jesus your problems, expect Him to fix them.

Matthew 9. Four stories of the healing power of faith in less than 30 verses!

The healing of the paralytic: “when Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, ‘Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven’ … and he rose and went home.”  

The rising of the dead: “… a ruler came in and knelt before him, saying, ‘my daughter has just died; but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live’ … He went in and took her by the hand, and the girl arose.” 

The healing of the haemorrhaging woman: “… she said to herself, ‘If I only touch his garment, I shall be made well.’ Jesus turned, and seeing her, He said, ‘Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.’ And instantly the woman was made well.”  

The healing of the two blind men: “… the blind men came to him; and Jesus said to them, ‘Do you believe that I am able to do this?’ They said to Him, ‘Yes, Lord.’ Then He touched their eyes, saying, ‘according to your faith be it done to you.’ And their eyes were opened.” 

These people were healed because of their faith. They were AUDACIOUS. They weren’t TRYING Jesus, they knew He could do all things and that he WOULD if they had the audacity to simply go to Him.

Still not clicking? Fine. I hear ya.

Let me tell you about my miracle. After praying for the conversion of a soul very dear to me (among other things) for a long time, I would lament God’s silence. I couldn’t see what was happening. I felt I was getting NOTHING.

***Cue Meltdown***
‘Why? Why don’t you help? Why don’t you want me to turn to You? Why are You ignoring me? How do You expect me to trust You if I run and ask You to tell me how to fix this AND. YOU. JUST. DON’T?’

Little did I know He was actually answering but my pride had simply made me deaf to Him. He was laughing at my dreams and saying ‘is that it? Just wait – wait and see what I have planned!’ My Lord, did you deliver…

My problem was that I didn’t give it to all Him and tell Him I was expecting a miracle. Instead, Little Miss Control Freak wanted to maintain her hold over the situation (you know, the hold I didn’t have in the first place). It was only when I gave up control and told Jesus that it was His problem to fix, it was only when I told Mary that this soul was hers and reminded her WITH AUDACITY that she promised she would not rest until all her children were with her in Heaven that my world (and more importantly, the lost soul’s world) was changed. I needed to truly know, that ‘the son of all these tears would not be lost.’[1]

Tell Jesus about your lack of wine, your blindness, your lamentations, your sufferings and your burdens. Offer up to Him what cripples you and know He will fix it. 

Be audacious, expect miracles. It will change your life.

Engrave this in your souls and hearts of gold and fire: 

immense confidence, unshakeable confidence 

in this King of Love, who is called Jesus - Saviour. 

---

[1] I owe St. Monica so much. In her son Augustine's classic, 'Confessions,' he relays the story of this saintly mother who never gave up on him, no matter how wicked he got. One day, while she was weeping and begging a Bishop to speak to him and convince him out of moving to Milan, lest he be lost forever, the bishop got frustrated and wisely told her, 'the son of all these tears cannot be lost.'

It was in Milan that he met St. Ambrose and was converted - the rest is history.

Mama Mons, thank you. Pray for us. 

Youth: Find Wonderful...

This is a post I've been trying to write for a long time. For some reason, the words just wouldn't come. BUT when I was asked to give a testimony at a LifeTeen Youth Ministry training retreat this weekend, this was the first thing that came to my mind and the words just came. This is a slightly adapted version of my personal testimony.

This is why I love youth ministry.

Anybody who knows me for longer than 15.8 seconds knows I’m a very passionate person. I’m also very cynical, very strange and I love people (even if most of the time I pretend I really don’t).

I also consider myself to have a great sense of wonder – but this hasn’t always been the case.

Now, months ago, Myer was running a campaign – ‘Find Wonderful.’ You can watch it here. For our American friends, ‘Myer’ is a department store probably equivalent to Macy’s or Bloomingdale’s. If you watch the ad, it speaks of the sense of wonder you experience as a child and how one day, ‘we all got serious in a great great blah of ‘adequate.’’ The ad then goes on to ask ‘why, when there’s so much to feel wonderful about?’

Now, the first time I saw the campaign I started to reflect, and then being me, got distracted with all the pretty Parisian dresses and impossibly high heels. BUT, the second time I saw the campaign, I thought about it. Where did the world’s sense of wonder go? When did life get ordinary?

Kids – teens – have a sense of wonder. Being a part of iSeek helped me become both a witness to and a part of that wonder. There is nothing more beautiful than watching them fall in love with the drama of love that is Christ. There is nothing more rewarding than being a part – however small – of their realisation that Jesus is not just ‘almighty God’ – all knowing, all powerful, ever present: distant – but that He is a person, who out of love for them, came to earth, suffered and died – and even more than that, imprisons Himself in the tabernacle day and night waiting for them. Even more than THAT even, He would do it all again for them ALONE. Once someone realises that Jesus needs to first an foremost be an encounter, there is no turning back – they’re ruined.

I think that’s the thing I love most about youth ministry. I call them ‘Jesus baby moments.’ AT LEAST every once in a while, a teen will walk up to me and show me why it’s all worth it.

Just a couple weeks ago, one of our girls walked up to me just to chat. While we were talking, she told me she couldn’t wait to leave school and that she would join the first religious order that would accept her as a sixteen year old. She then went on to criticise teens her age for not understanding where their priorities should lie – ‘like, I don’t understand why a fourteen year old needs a boyfriend – they’re not gonna get married anytime soon, BUT I’m really happy that a little while ago one of my friends told me he and his girlfriend had spoken and decided to choose love over lust.’ I guarantee they didn’t learn that from MTV.

Another time, right after same sex marriage passed in the U.S. Supreme Court and the rainbow profile pictures as well as ‘love won’ statuses became popular, one teen posted on Facebook ‘love truly won when Christ spread His arms out in the ultimate sign of love for you and I; when He died.’ Another posted it was ‘upsetting how the world is fed these lies’ only to prompt a response from another iSeek teen: ‘you know what’s crazy about Christianity, people are always jumping over what we are ‘against,’ instead of what we’re about: unconditional love.’

When teens refer to the Eucharist as ‘Jesus’ or ‘Heaven on earth,’ or speak about us as the ‘Mystical Body of Christ’ – yes, that actually happened – it never fails to make my heart dance. When I watch teens in adoration or observe them afterwards, I know we are doing something worthwhile.

That’s why I love youth ministry. It helps us never lose the sense of wonder that made us fall madly in love with Christ and His Church in the first place. Pope Pius XI used to love mountain climbing, and often used it as an analogy of how our relationships get us to Heaven. We and the teens help each other up, sometimes looking below at what we have overcome, but always motivated by what is above: the deepest, most wonderful desires of our hearts. What eye has not seen and ear has not heard, a beauty we can never imagine.

Taking Christ's call to be 'childlike' PERHAPS a little too 

seriously - but, hey, I'll bet you don't have this much fun!