A God of miracles

Patrick Novecosky writes that God’s biggest miracles are happening right now . . .

Patrick Novecosky

I keep a running list of story ideas for this magazine on my computer. Several times a month I’ll hear — from a Legate, our executive director or a regional director — about how God is working in the lives of Legatus members.

When it came time to plan this issue — our annual Catholic health care issue — I looked at my list and realized I had four or five stories of miraculous healings. We feature two of them in this magazine (Miracle Man, Liberating Freedom). My initial thought was to combine them into one big story, but each of the stories is so powerful and so soaked with the Holy Spirit that we couldn’t possibly do them justice without telling their stories individually.

You may have noticed that such miracles are plentiful. Just as there are more martyrs in our day than ever before, there is an abundance of authenticated miracles. Just last month, a Vatican medical panel unanimously approved a reported miracle attributed to Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s intercession. In 2010, James Fulton Engstrom was delivered stillborn. The baby showed no signs of life as medical professionals tried to revive him, but his parents asked for Sheen’s intercession and the baby lived. After looking at the evidence, the panel concluded that there was no natural explanation for the child being alive.

I don’t know about you, but I still find it odd when people are shocked by such inexplicable healings and people coming back from the dead. Despite all the miracles Jesus performed while he walked the earth, he told his followers that the best was yet to come: “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do — and will do greater ones than these — because I am going to the Father. And whatever you ask in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son” (John 14:12-13).

We who profess Christ in a post-Christian culture often feel like we’re living in the desert, especially as we journey through Lent. But the Lord is a God of wonders and miracles beyond all explanation. Why? Because of His radical love for each and every one of us.

Despite our sin and unworthiness, Jesus not only died on the cross for us, but he journeys with us through life. He takes each step right beside us, calling us to a deeper relationship with him. And once in a while the veil between heaven and earth parts and miracles happen — every single day.

PATRICK NOVECOSKY is Legatus magazine’s editor-in-chief.