here & now

Dec 12, 2023

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Apparition (definition):
an unusual or unexpected sight 

a remarkable or unexpected appearance of someone or something.

Today is the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and this Mexican place of pilgrimage is the third most visited shrine in the world receiving almost 20 million pilgrims each year.

Many people are skeptical about the possibility that Mary might appear on earth, or that other similarly remarkable and unexpected things could happen. While there’s nothing wrong with having doubts or reservations, when skepticism limits our ability to see the full reality of human existence (which can never be reduced to the rational and tangible) then we are living a rather limited existence.

Life in relationship Jesus Christ opens a new dimension of existence, beyond what we can reasonably expect or presume to be possible. Without Christ the best we can hope for is what we can achieve for ourselves. With faith, the miracles worked by Jesus are offered to us today.

These miracles will often be unusual and unexpected, and cannot be satisfactorily explained to those seek rational and tangible evidence.

Our problem is that while we accept that miracles and apparitions might happen for other people in other times and other places, we struggle to believe that God will work miracles for us, and will communicate with us here and now as directly.

An Invitation:

  • Place your need before Jesus, and expect Him to communicate with you clearly and directly today in a way that you know to be a miracle worked by Jesus personally for you today. 

6 Comments

  1. Our Lady of Guadalupe will help us in Aotearoa/ NZ to unite on cultural issues..

    Her appearance to Juan Diego was in the indigenous cultural dress he knew

    As you indicate, the ‘miracle’ is to see and cherish the full depth of what is right in front of us…

    Reply
    • Mary appeared to the impoverished and oppressed Indian Juan Diego to confirm, for the teeming millions of the little ones of that Continent the mission of her Son,, to bring Good News to the poor, to set the down-trodden free, as we will hear again in the reading from Isaiah for the coming Third Sunday of Advent.

      Reply
  2. I particularly like the last paragraph as I do struggle to believe that miracles are for me.

    Reply
  3. Thank you, I needed to read that today.
    May our hearts be truly open to the love and miracle of Christ.

    Reply
    • Mary’s appearance at Guadalupe sparked 8 million conversions to the Catholic Church and stopped all the human sacrifices to their Gods and so now we ask her help for our pro-life movements. Nasal tested the the tilma and said that the paint was unknown on earth.

      Reply
  4. God, His holy angels, my guardian angel, the holy spirit that dwells within me, have performed many miracles for me. I have been blest many times. Saved from causing an accident and getting killed. Saved from killing myself and my wife when crashing into a tree. Saved from drowning by my wife when trying to ford an inlet. There are so many times when I have been grateful for Gods help. I am a sinner and could never deserve what God has done for me. The true miracle is that God loves me.

    Reply

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