In the course of my 9 years as a priest, many times I have been asked a question that goes something along the lines of this: "Father, why don't miracles happen as often in the world today?" Now, call me sarcastic or technical, or whatever you want to call it, my go to answer to that question is, "I know of one miracle that happens everyday...and you can witness that miracle." Sometimes, I'll get a response that indicates people aren't picking up what I'm putting down. For at every Mass we attend, we witness a miracle. In other words, we witness God intervening in the created order in a way that is outside of the natural order established when He created the world. In the created order, if a human were to say to bread to become a turtle, nothing would happen. That is outside the authority of mankind, and outside the natural power of man. However, that is not the case with God. While, He often does "obey" the laws He established at the creation of the world - He is not bound by them as we are. When He speaks - that which He speaks happens. When he said, "Let there be light," there was light. When He said, "This is my body," at the Supper, what was bread became his body. At every Mass - Jesus does the same thing. He uses the agency of the ordained priest - but it is His action that carries out the change of substance.
Other times, people will understand what I was referencing when answering the way I did. In that case, they usually respond by saying something like, "Father - you know what I meant...why don't we see healings and such like in the Gospels (or it seems not as frequently as they seem to be in the Gospels." To shortly answer this question, 1. We do see miracles happen today. And 2. it is hard to say if they occur more or less frequently than in the Gospels. For we don't really have a frame of reference for how frequently they occured in the Gospels. Yes, we read of a lot happening, but we also are reading about what happened over a 3 year period, and we aren't getting a day by day recount. We are getting the "highlights" so to speak, and so it may seem more frequent than it actually happened. Back to my first point - the occurences of miracles. We know that healing miracles and such do still happen. But with celebrating Corpus Christi, I want to focus on one branch of miracles - Eucharistic Miracles. First, even outside the knowledge that at every Mass you witness a miracle, I want to say that just a few months ago (maybe up to 6 or 7 even) I read about a possible Eucharistic Miracle that happened in Connecticut where a priest underestimated how many people would be at Mass and he was sure they would run out of consecrated hosts. He figured he underestimated by a 100-200 people. As he goes to distribute, he tells the other priests, deacons, and eucharistic ministers to watch how much they have in line and how many hosts remain to start breaking hosts in half they are running low. Not a single person distributing communion ran out of hosts, nor did they have to break any in half. While this Eucharistic miracle is not officially approved by the Church, there is an investigation into it. This is just one recent account of miracle happening related to the Eucharist. Historically, there have been around 152 Eucharistic Miracles approved by the Church. To see the list, go to this website http://www.miracolieucaristici.org/en/Liste/list.html. This was set up by Blessed Carlo Acutis - a man who fell deeply in love with Jesus and desired to help others do the same. He especially wanted that to happen through Eucharistic Adoration and to strengthen belief in Jesus' Real Presence in the Eucharist.
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