God's Miracles Abound
Homily on the scripture readings for Sunday, August 2, 2026
Good morning! What a great topic to discuss today, God’s miracles!
The miracles of Jesus during His life on earth were so numerous that not all of them were recorded in the Gospels. His first miracle of turning water into wine at the wedding of Cana was done at the request of His mother, Mary. Scores of sick people were cured when they asked and believed that Jesus could cure them.
Great faith and great efforts
One miracle happened when a man was lowered through a hole in the roof of a house where Jesus was. He was cured because of the faith and effort of the men who carried him on a sheet all the way up onto a roof, then lowering him down through a hole in the roof near to Jesus. These men had great faith. They made great efforts to bring their friend to Jesus. A great miracle then happened in the curing of their friend.
Today in our Gospel reading we have a miracle of the loaves and fishes, where Jesus multiplied a mere handful of food to feed thousands! Yes, it was a real miracle and can’t be disregarded as people just sharing whatever they brought with them in their pockets. Such explanations are an insult to the power of Jesus and are a denial of the accuracy of the account as it is written in the Gospel.
An unplanned gathering of thousands
Our Gospel reading today opens with Jesus hearing of the death of His friend St. John the Baptist. Saddened, He and his disciples took a boat and went to a deserted spot to mourn and spend time in reflection and prayer.
But people saw them leave in the boat and rushed to run along the shoreline to follow the boat. The boat took the shorter route across the water. The vast crowds needed to hurry all around the body of water by running and walking a much greater distance to meet up with Jesus on the other side of the water. Some even walked from their villages when they heard of the great gathering of people to meet Jesus.
This all took great faith and great effort.
Seeing them all gathered there, Jesus had pity on them and cured the sick among them. Scripture says that there were 5000 men plus women and children. He also had pity that they had arrived at this desolate place and when evening fell they had nothing to eat.
Jesus gathers only five loaves of bread and two fish from His disciples. He then looks up to Heaven, blesses the food, and breaks the bread loaves into smaller pieces. He places these few pieces into baskets for the disciples to distribute to everyone in the crowd - thousands of people!
Now, imagine being one or two of the disciples holding a basket with a few pieces of bread and a couple pieces of fish. Jesus is telling you to walk over to your part of about six thousand people and give them all food to eat from it!
Not only did it take great faith on the part of the disciples to approach a hungry crowd with just a few morsels of food, but to keep walking, and keep handing out more food, and keep walking, and keep handing out more food. I’ve never walked among thousands people to hand something out to each one of them - but I can imagine it takes considerable time and energy. This miracle took considerable faith and effort!
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When we look to Jesus for miracles in our lives, do we do so with great faith and are we willing to make great efforts?
Miracles don’t come free. Even in our Gospel story today when Jesus had great pity for the crowds He didn’t just have donuts rain down on them from Heaven. It took the great faith and efforts of both the people and the disciples to eventually reap the benefit of the miracle that Jesus wanted to grant for them. To be clear, none of these people were “earning” this miracle. It was a gracious gift given by Jesus of His own choosing to give glory to God.
Just two days ago the Gospel reading was about Jesus preaching and desiring to heal people in His home town of Nazareth. But very few people were cured. Not because Jesus held back His power and mercy for them, but as that Gospel recounts:
But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and in his own house.” And he did not work many mighty deeds there because of their lack of faith. (Mt 13:58)
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Let’s take a look at our own lives.
No doubt we all have experienced some small miracles along the way in our lives. An unexpected discount on something we wanted to purchase or an unexpected refund arriving in the mailbox that we didn’t know was coming. Perhaps an unexpected visit from a friend or relative or a bus or train that was delayed “just enough” for us to catch it when we were running very late.
The Holy Spirit and the Holy Angels surround us every minute of every day. These small miracles are their way of easing our life a bit, but are also ways they bless us and our lives! Looking out for them and acknowledging them to be from God, and giving thanks and praise to God for them is an important way to grow our faith.
I personally know of circumstances where people were miraculously saved from danger by being “pushed” out of harms way by their guardian angel or specifically delayed on a road trip as to not be involved in a multi-car highway crash. These miracles are graces extended to us by our guardian angel or other Holy Angels.
Growing our faith in God and in God’s miracles by recognizing the small miracles that happen to us and around us helps us in our journey to build great faith for ourselves. A great faith that is needed for us to benefit from, make great efforts for, and to experience the future great miracles that God has in store for each one of us!
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So here is what to do:
Pray for great and extraordinary holy blessings in your life.
Believe with great faith that God hears your prayers for these.
Keep working hard, living a holy life, and fighting for these.
Trust that Jesus will bless you abundantly regarding these.
Respect God’s timing and choice of how and when He answers these prayers.
Be confident that God has it all, yes - ALL of it, in His hands and He will guide the events and people and situations all along the way for your benefit.
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Trust in God. It’s the only thing, and it’s everything, that we have by faith. All other institutions, people, and organizations will ultimately fail us one day.
Just as St. Faustina had written at the bottom of the Divine Mercy painting that she commissioned:
Jesus, I Trust in You!
Praise be to God!
All scripture readings for today can be found here.
To me what's even more astounding than the fact that not all of Jesus' miracles are written in the Bible, is the fact that the Apostle John wrote at the end of his Gospel, "Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written." John 21:25, NIV Bible.