Why do we not see miracles?
St. Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow (+1867)
Why do we not see miracles? Let him who can,
answer otherwise, but to me it seems that we are of necessity brought to this
answer: We do not see miracles, or we see them rarely, either because they are
invisible to us as unworthy of trust, or because they are not even accomplished,
through unbelief or want of faith.
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How can miracles be accomplished in us by
prayer, when our prayer is short, cold, inattentive, and offered up, not so
much in faith and filial love to God, as in a sort of involuntary submission to
His law?
How can a spiritual word work miracles in us,
when our heart, like a field wild with tares, is thickly sown with idle words,
and overgrown by carnal desires and unlawful thoughts?
How can the Holy Mysteries work miracles in us,
if we approach them but from absolute necessity, without a careful previous
purification, without an ardent aspiration to be united to God?
Let us, my brethren, call upon the Lord Who is
unceasingly working miracles unto our salvation, and both each for all and all
for each, let us cry to Him with the Apostles, Lord, increase our
faith. (Lk 17:5).
St. Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow (+1867)