Waiting for miracles
In today’s liturgy, we are presented with two different miracles. One in the first reading from the First Book of Kings and the second in the Gospel according to St. Luke. Baker's Dictionary of the Bible defines a miracle as "an event in the external world brought about by the immediate agency or the simple volition of God." It goes on to add that a miracle occurs to show that the power behind it is not limited to the laws of matter or mind as it interrupts fixed natural laws. The origin of the English word goes back via Middle English and Old French, to the Latin miraculum , from mirari , to wonder at, from mirus , wonderful. We also get the word ‘ mirare ’, ‘to look upward’ in Italian. Since the end of my lectures a few weeks again, I have had a little bit more time to ponder and to wonder at the smaller details of life. C. S. Lewis tells us that “miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too l...