In 1978 I went on a conference to Hopwood Hall in Manchester. I was with my mum who had suffered for many years from a back problem caused by lifting my grandmother. As long as I could remember mum had worn a steel corset and when her back became very painful she would retire to bed. When able she would get up and stagger round the house hardly able to put one foot in front of another. The pain was horrendous and all the doctors said they could do nothing for her. The discs at the base of her spine were crumbling and an operation might be successful but there was the possibility she might never walk again after it. So mum opted to leave well alone and to struggle on. At the conference mum leaned forward to pick up a cup of tea and within minutes was crumpled on the floor in agony. I ran to the Chapel where people were gathering for Mass and brought a doctor and a nurse with me. The doctor examined mum and said there was nothing to be done but pray. So we gathered around her and prayed.

The nurse offered to spend the night with mum and the next day before breakfast I went to mum’s room. She opened the door to me and until the day she died she never wore her corset again. The doctors were amazed because the x-rays still showed all the degeneration they had shown before and yet mum was free from pain. I have to say after that experience and others like it, I believe in miracles. Seeing what happened to my mother did two things for me. It gave me again an insight into who Jesus is. Only God could make happen what I had experienced and it challenged me again to open myself to the reality of God’s kingdom where the impossible becomes possible. The Church sees a miracle as something beyond natural explanation and I have seen many things beyond natural explanation. Sr Briege McKenna wrote a book called ‘Miracles do happen’ which tells many stories of God acting sovereignly in people’s lives.

I think it would be fair to say that the word miracle is bandied around maybe more than it should be. Lots of so called miracles have a natural explanation. That doesn’t mean that God isn’t at work through them and in them. Most of the time that’s precisely how God does work and sometimes our searching for the miraculous can stop us seeing and experiencing the God who is present in the ordinary. The Jews at the time of Jesus believed in miracles. At the heart of their belief was the miraculous escape from Egypt. Throughout the Old Testament there are stories of miracles particularly in the time of Elisha and Elijah. So the understanding that there could be miracles was right at the centre of Jewish belief.

Jesus lived at a time when lots of people peddled their miracle working wares on the streets. People believed in a spiritual reality in a way that our society doesn’t. People were also limited in their understanding. They hadn’t developed in knowledge in the way that we have. So anything which seemed to be outside the ordinary could have been seen as miraculous. Why then does Mark include miracle stories in his Gospel? Is it just to present Jesus as a wonder worker? No. Firstly, miracles were announcements. They announced that Jesus is the Messiah inaugurating God’s kingdom. The prophet Isaiah had foretold that the coming of the Messiah would be accompanied by certain signs. Mark wants us to be clear about who Jesus is. Secondly, miracles were invitations. They invited people to believe in Jesus and to enter into God’s kingdom. The healing of the blind, the curing of the deaf, the raising of the dead were not permanent cures. The blind person’s sight would dim again with age, the deaf person’s hearing would fade again, and the dead person would die again.

So what was the deeper meaning behind these miracles? The healing of the blind is a sign inviting people to open their eyes to what Jesus did. Where are you blind? The curing of the deaf is a sign inviting people to open their ears to what Jesus said. Where are you deaf? Finally, the raising of the dead is a sign inviting people to be reborn, to begin to live new lives in God’s kingdom. Where do you need to be reborn?

As you listen to Mark’s Gospel at Sunday Mass and hear the miracle stories allow them to build up your own faith to expect the impossible in your own lives.

Fr Chris Thomas heads up the Irenaeus Project. He is a member of the Emmaus Family of Prayer and a priest of the Liverpool Diocese.