[00:00] Praised be Jesus and Mary. St. Mark the Evangelist is believed to have been the young man who, when Our Lord was arrested, was in the Garden of Gethsemane, and ran away, and is mentioned as the arrest was taking place. He was possibly also part of the family that owned the upper room where Our Lord had the

[00:34] Last Supper. He was a companion after Our Lord's resurrection of St. Paul and St. Barnabas, and then St. Barnabas alone, and then St. Peter, with whom He was in Rome, and from whom He received many of the details of his gospel, which he wrote down. It is believed that St. Mark then went on to found a church in Egypt, in Alexandria, and that's where he suffered martyrdom himself. In today's Gospel of Mark, we hear that Our Lord accompanied the apostles, the disciples,

[01:08] confirmed the Word through accompanying signs, so miracles. And it is a bit of a debate today, if we can call it a debate, how frequently these signs should be occurring, how frequently these miracles should be taking place. It's a big debate, an interesting question, but I think if we look at it, perhaps the debate is not really about how frequent these signs should be, because they certainly happen. Our Lord certainly works miracles today to confirm the gospel.

[01:45] The debate, perhaps, without even realizing, is about how much we should control these signs and how much we should control these miracles. So, the Holy Father, back then Pope Francis, warned certain movements within the Church which, although very good, nevertheless have this tendency to try to control these signs, to schedule speaking in tongues, to schedule the prophetic gifts, to schedule the healings. On Wednesday, we heal.

[02:15] On Thursday, we speak in tongues. On Saturdays, we're going to try to raise the dead. And if you're not doing it, we're going to train you so you get there. And I'm saying this with a little bit of humor, but there's this underlying tendency that if you train people, they will be able to work these signs, and they will be more commonplace. And if they're not more commonplace, we're not training people. We're not asking for them. We're not doing what's in our power to make them happen. But the nature of these signs is that they're not in our power. They are gifts, charisms from God.

[02:47] They occur. And they occur, yes, we can say frequently, but they occur as gifts. We can't demand them. We can't make them happen. God simply gives them when He wants, to whom He wants, for whatever reason He wants. So, one sign, one wonder that recently I've been thinking about, a Eucharistic miracle, a very recent one, it's appropriate that I mention it during Mass, happened in 2013. So, very recent. Miracles, Eucharistic miracles, happen not only in the Middle Ages.

[03:18] Miracles, in general, happen not only in the Middle Ages, but even until today, they happen. So, in 2013, and this is an approved one, in Poland, in a church in Poland, this is an approved one, in Poland, in a town called Legnica, on Christmas Day, Holy Communion was being distributed, and the consecrated host accidentally fell to the ground. That can, unfortunately, sometimes happen. The priest thought it was impossible to consume the host. So, he put it in a little vessel of water, like we have next to the tabernacle.

[03:50] There's that little cup of water. And if you put a host in the water, it'll dissolve. And when the bread, the appearances of bread are gone, then the presence of the Body of Christ is gone as well. After he did that, however, the host, in that little cup, formed a little red spot, a bright red spot, right on the edge, which is very unusual, because all that goes in there is water and any particles of the host. Where do you get this red spot? So, he alerted the bishop. The bishop decided to have this little red spot studied.

[04:22] So, he went to the Department of Forensic Sciences at the local university. So, professional people that study this stuff, and unexpectedly, they discovered that this little red spot contained human DNA from human heart tissue of a person who was dying under great, or who had died under great strain, great duress. That's all they knew. That's all they could say. "We study the sample that you gave us, human heart tissue of a person who died under great duress." Like Our Lord in the Passion.

[04:54] So, the bishop knew, again, all that went into that glass cup was just a host and water. And now we've got human heart tissue. So, he alerted the Holy See. Then the Holy See studied the fact and said, "Okay, wow, this is a sign from God." A sign of what? Of the Real Presence. It wasn't a scheduled miracle. It wasn't something that we could be trained to make happen. It was simply a gift from God, inexplicably. Why did He want to make it happen then and not before and not after?

[05:24] Well, these are the mysteries of God. He's bigger than us. His thoughts are not our thoughts. His ways are not our ways. And if it's not happening at every Mass, it's not the fault of the people at Mass, not even the fault of the priest, because you could have a holy priest and not working any Eucharistic miracles. These are gifts from God that He gives when He wants to whom He wants. So, these miracles, again, they still happen. It's just that we can't schedule them. We have to simply dispose ourselves to receive them. And how do we do that?

[05:55] By holiness, by simply being holy, because that we can't control. Our response to God's grace, our practice of virtue, our avoiding sin, our intensity of prayer, our love for God, that is in our power. And if we dispose ourselves, well, when God sees we need it, He'll give us a miracle for whatever His purpose might be. Praised be Jesus and Mary,

[06:45] now and forever.