The more unusual an event is, the easier it is to believe that God is involved.
Take, for example, two men diagnosed with cancer. The first man undergoes surgery, and it reveals a small tumor that is easily removed. After some treatment, he recovers and returns to work. Everything goes back to normal.
But the second man’s situation is much more dire. His cancer is far advanced, and the doctors predict he will only have six months to live, if he’s lucky. Yet, six months pass, and the man is still alive. When he returns to his doctor, there is no sign of the tumor that once threatened his life. The medical professionals are baffled, and the event is deemed a miracle.
While both men ultimately experience recovery, one event is labeled a miracle, while the other is seen as a natural result of medical intervention. Why the distinction? The difference lies in what we are familiar with. We are accustomed to the idea that early detection and treatment can lead to recovery from cancer. But spontaneous, unexplained recovery is a rare occurrence, one that doesn’t fit into our understanding of how things usually work. So, we call it a miracle—a sign of divine intervention.
This tendency to see God only in the unusual is something we often do. Yet, our Gospel introduces us to a man who overcame this tendency—Simeon. He was in the Temple when Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to present Him to God.
What caught Simeon’s attention that day wasn’t the extraordinary, but the ordinary. Here was an ordinary couple, with an ordinary baby, participating in a common ritual. For centuries, Jewish parents had been presenting their children in this way. But Simeon, instead of just seeing what was familiar, looked deeper. He saw the divine. He saw the Messiah.
Simeon knew that in this Child, Heaven had touched earth, and life would never be the same. The challenge we face today is that if we only look for God in the extraordinary, we will rarely find Him. But if we learn to see God in the everyday, we’ll encounter Him frequently.
Most of our days are ordinary. We rise, go about our routines, and the days blur together. There are no grand events, no moments that feel life-altering, just the constant push of getting through each day. We don’t have time to think about the divine as we focus on getting through our busy lives.
But do we ever pause to think of God when we eat? Without Him, nothing would grow. Do we reflect on Him when we receive a hug from someone we love? Without Him, they wouldn’t be in our lives.
No one saw God more clearly than Jesus. He recognized God at work in the lilies of the field and the birds of the air. He saw God’s saving work in a shepherd searching for a lost sheep, and in a father embracing his wayward son. He saw the Kingdom of God in trusting little children. For Jesus, ordinary moments and people were like open windows to Heaven, through which He could easily see God.
We can do the same. Our failure to see God doesn’t mean He’s absent. More likely, it means we’re looking only for Him in the extraordinary, which happens so rarely. But God is with us always, in the ordinary people and events of our everyday lives.
How do we know this? Why else would He take ordinary bread and wine and say, “This is My Body, this is My Blood, given for you?”
My friends, as we embark on the 2025 Jubilee Year, with the theme “Pilgrims of Hope,” we are reminded of the many ways God invites us to encounter Him—not just in the extraordinary, but in the everyday.
Remember: A pilgrim’s journey is not always about traveling to distant places. It is about recognizing the divine in our daily lives and familiar surroundings.
