"What changed my life at WYD was having an encounter with Christ.""WYD is an encounter with the living Christ through the Church," Pope saysThe healing of Jimena during WYD, a young sixteen-year-old girl from Madrid who is practically blind, has moved the whole world. It happened on August 5, the feast of Our Lady of the Snows, on the last day of a novena that she and all her friends were making to ask for her healing. And it took place in the middle of the World Youth DayThe event was held in Lisbon, where Jimena attended to join an uncountable crowd of young people from all over the world.
I have been surprised (perhaps not too surprised) by the reaction of some journalists who, even with the evidence placed before their own eyes that this girl was blind and now sees, refuse to acknowledge this inexplicable fact, this possible miracle. They are simply seeing it with their own eyes, but they do not believe in miracles.
They are more blind than Jimena was. They have it right in front of their eyes and they don't see it.
In reality, this blindness is nothing more than the blindness suffered by our society as a whole. Our world does not believe in miracles. And even those of us who call ourselves believers find it difficult to believe in these extraordinary manifestations of the supernatural in our lives. The main reason is that we have a materialistic preconception of reality in which, even if we believe in the existence of God, we do not believe that God can act in material reality. We conceive of God and everything supernatural as a reality distinct and distant from material reality, without any connection whatsoever. The deistic vision of a watchmaker who sets in motion a machine that then works by itself has crept in.
But that is not the Christian view of God and his relationship with the world. God did not simply create the world millions of years ago. God continues to create it and sustain it in its existence. And as a loving Father, he is present in our lives and cares for us in his providence.
One day Jesus shouted for joy because the Father in heaven was hiding the mysteries of the Kingdom from the wise and intelligent and showing them to the simple (cf. Mt 11:25). Something like this is still happening today. For the millions of young people who, like Jimena, attended WYD, it seemed extraordinarily normal to them that God would work this possible miracle and they rejoiced with Jimena at her healing. Perhaps because during those days they themselves had lived in an atmosphere of spirituality and transcendence in which God was closely present.
Miracles are signs that God performs to show us the nearness of a Kingdom that is already among us. Jesus healed the blind, not only as an act of charity and mercy, but to teach us to see more deeply, with the eyes of faith.
The big question that springs up in my heart is, what did God want to tell us with this possible miracle? Undoubtedly the Lord has responded to the faith of Jimena and her friends who made that novena for her healing. How many young people would dare to tell their friends to join them in prayer to ask for something? It takes courage to do so, as D. Ignacio Munilla pointed out in a meeting with young people at WYD when commenting on this event.
But I also believe that God is telling us much more with this healing. He is confirming to the young people of the whole world on the road they have traveled hand in hand with Francis in these days that, like Mary, they must rise up and go out to meet their brothers and sisters, carrying Jesus in their hearts. That universal fraternity is possible. And that God, Emmanuel, walks with us as the close and real God.
And, as I said ChestertonThe most incredible thing about miracles is that they happen.
And now young people all over the world know it. They have seen it with their own eyes.
Teaching Delegate in the Diocese of Getafe since the 2010-2011 academic year, he has previously exercised this service in the Archbishopric of Pamplona and Tudela, for seven years (2003-2009). He currently combines this work with his dedication to youth ministry directing the Public Association of the Faithful 'Milicia de Santa Maria' and the educational association 'VEN Y VERÁS. EDUCATION', of which he is President.
