Our obsession with Signs and Wonders

The gospel of John 4:48 says "None of you will ever believe unless you see signs and wonders".

Jesus knew what he was saying when he made this statement; for sure he did not mean it as a compliment. Several times he showed his frustration over the people of his time refusing to 'see' he was the messiah while they kept insisting on signs and wonders. Even when he worked many miracles, they just asked for more and more and more.

Unfortunately, we the people of our time seem to have inherited this 'signs and wonders' mentality even though quite frankly we should know better. Searching through the scriptures, we see that Jesus emphasized that 'belief in him (faith) and in his words far outweighed any works that he could have done. In fact he often talked about faith as the basis for every action and how everything is possible for the one who has faith.

Signs and wonders do not lead to increased faith. If we do not have faith, we would not appreciate the 'signs and wonder' no matter how magnificent the 'display' may be. It's all about faith and conviction (Read Luke 16:19-31).

Often times Jesus chastised his disciples for their lack of faith, and the people in general for their failure to believe in his words. However he made it very clear that what is required is belief in his words and conviction in the gospel. Every other thing is secondary. Actually if we really look at it, the people that benefitted the most from Jesus were the people that believed in his words and demonstrated that faith by their actions.

Matthew 8:5-9, Luke 7:1-10. The story of the centurion who told Jesus 'But just say the word, and my servant will be healed'
Matthew 12:38-42, Matthew 16:1-4, Luke 11:29-32. In this passage Jesus chastised the Pharisees who requested for a sign from him and called them a 'wicked and adulterous generation'.
John 20:24-29. The story of 'doubting' Thomas who insisted on seeing the risen Christ instead of believing his fellow apostles when they told him Jesus had risen.

Enough said. It's now up to us to decide if we want to be word-believing Christians or sign-believing Christians.

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My take on the new evangelization

Evangelization, Evangelization, Evangelization. In truth not a word I associated with personally as a lay faithful of the Catholic Church, until about a year ago; though it was a word I was familiar with and mainly associated with followers of other Christian non-catholic religion. Then it appeared as if all of a sudden, and Evangelization became a buzz word in the catholic community. However it had started gaining momentum several years before, during the papacy of Pope Benedict XVI and his call for the new evangelization; however I was late getting to know about it and getting on the 'new evangelization' train.

Anyway as it so happened, my parish priest started talking about it a lot and calling on everyone to take part in the work of evangelization. He reminded us that it was our primary Christian calling to evangelize and the parish organized street evangelization programs that as many as we're interested were encouraged to take part in.

I did take part in one of such programs, though in truth it felt a bit weird just randomly going on the streets and sharing with people the word of God. However this should not have been the case, for me especially, as I have been a member of this society in the church called the Legion of Mary and one of our primary duties was what we call 'Home to Home visitation' which requires members to visit homes and share the good news. But as I said earlier, I was out of touch.

Now, however, the call for all Catholics to partake in the new evangelization is hard to miss. Pope Francis has not stopped talking about it. So many central, national and even local church programs have as their theme something related to the new evangelization. The pope's latest apostolic exhortation is all about spreading the message of the good news with joy and the last world youth day celebration had as its theme 'Go and make disciples of all nations'.

Like I said, it's pretty hard to miss now. So for the majority of Catholics, we now know what we have been called to either start doing or continue doing depending on where you currently stand, but with renewed fervor.

The main question I guess is how to achieve this on a personal level; it sure is one question I have been asking myself, uncomfortable as I am to go knock on people's doors randomly to share the word. How can I take part in the evangelization mission? To start with, what even is evangelization, what does it mean to me?

The standard dictionary meaning of evangelize is 'to preach the gospel' (Dictionary.com). However the Catholic Church in the United States provides an excellent definition of Catholic evangelization rephrasing some words of Pope Paul VI in Evangelii Nuntiandi. "Evangelizing means bringing the Good News of Jesus into every human situation and seeking to convert individuals and society by the divine power of the Gospel itself. At its essence are the proclamation of salvation in Jesus Christ and the response of a person in faith, which are both works of the Spirit of God. Evangelization must always be directly connected to the Lord Jesus Christ....There is no true evangelization if the name, the teaching, the life, the promises, the Kingdom and the mystery of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God are not proclaimed." (http://www.camdendiocese.org/index.php/what-is-catholic-evangelization).

I will focus on the first sentence of this definition which corroborates something which I discovered in scripture recently when seeking answers on how to evangelize and what God opened my eyes to see. A few days ago I read a passage from the gospel of Mark, chapter 2:1-12. This is the story of the healing of the paralytic and one that I had read, heard and listened to sermons on several times. On this day it struck me that the first thing Jesus said to the paralytic was 'Your sins are forgiven'. For sure, I don't think that this was what the paralytic or his four friends were expecting; in truth at that time the people did not identify with Jesus as the son of God who had the power to forgive sins and liberate them from the power of the evil one, what they did know was that he was a great healer (curing the sick) and a great provider (feeding the multitudes). But oftentimes, Jesus would tell the people he encountered 'Your sins are forgiven' (Mark2:9, Luke7:48), or 'Your faith has saved you' (Mark10:52) before they saw the physical manifestation of their healing.

In this I see a pattern: the miracles Jesus worked which were recorded in the scriptures showed that while carrying out the physical healing, Jesus was also concerned with the spiritual healing of the people. He used every opportunity for healing, casting out demons, feeding the hungry and all the other works that he did to pass across a higher message; the need for spiritual healing and salvation.

What can we learn from our teacher and master? In our day to day lives we encounter people in need; perhaps they come to us for assistance either financial or material, sometimes it's just to give them a shoulder to lean on in their moments of trial and difficulty, it could be to support them with a listening ear, it could be to reach out to that lonely neighbour or colleague or individual we see around but for whom it doesn't look like much is happening. When we come across or are presented with these opportunities, in meeting their corporal needs let us also remember that more importantly, we need to meet their spiritual needs. Let us use these opportunities to share the joyful news of the gospel and the liberation that is in Christ Jesus. This is one way we can evangelize, bringing the good news of Jesus into every human situation.

Let me conclude by sharing this verse, 2 Corinthians 1:3-4. 'Let us give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the merciful Father, the God from whom all help comes! He helps us in all our troubles, so that we are able to help others who have all kinds of troubles, using the same help that we ourselves have received from God.'

May this be our inspiration, consolation and testimony, when it's all been said and done.

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