Every Day, Miracles!

A Reflection on the First Reading for Sunday, June 29th, 2025:
The Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul

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Acts
2.1-11 

​In those days, King Herod laid violent hands upon some who belonged to the Church. He had James, the brother of John, killed with the sword. After he saw that it pleased some of the people, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. This was during the festival of Unleavened Bread.

When he had seized him, he put him in prison and handed him over to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending to bring him out to the people after the Passover. While Peter was kept in prison, the Church prayed fervently to God for him.

The very night before Herod was going to bring him out, Peter, bound with two chains, was sleeping between two soldiers, while guards in front of the door were keeping watch over the prison. Suddenly an Angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He tapped Peter on the side and woke him, saying, “Get up quickly.” And the chains fell off his wrists.

The Angel said to him, “Fasten your belt and put on your sandals.” He did so. Then he said to him, “Wrap your cloak around you and follow me.” Peter went out and followed him; he did not realize that what was happening with the Angel’s help was real; he thought he was seeing a vision.

After they had passed the first and the second guard, they came before the iron gate leading into the city. It opened for them of its own accord, and they went outside and walked along a lane, when suddenly the Angel left him.

Then Peter came to himself and said, “Now I am sure that the Lord has sent his Angel and rescued me from the hands of Herod and from all that the people were expecting.”

Pause. Pray. Reflect.

The lives of the saints have much to teach us. The First Reading for this coming Sunday tells us that our “faith muscles” are strengthened most especially through regular exercise and practice, and less so through events. To grow our faith, we must intentionally acknowledge both the spectacular and the familiar action of the Divine in our lives. Peter — who saw with his own eyes Jesus and Lazarus risen from the dead, who spoke and ate with Jesus before the Ascension, and who watched Jesus being taken up to Heaven and received the Holy Spirit descending upon the Apostles — even Peter does not recognize in the moment that 1) his rescue “was real” (he thought it was a vision), and 2) chains and doors unlocking of their “own accord” was divine intervention.

It’s true that each one of us will witness spectacular miracles in this lifetime, but let’s not rely on these extraordinary occurrences to sustain our faith. Instead, let’s commit to seeking out the everyday miracles that happen much more frequently in this world, so frequently that we sometimes fail to acknowledge them as miracles. How extraordinary is it that trees communicate with each other; that birds that have never migrated in their lives know when they must migrate and also where they must go; that our bodies heal themselves of wounds and disease all the time without the slightest intervention from the reasoning part of us.

Faith is the practice of connecting with God every day, looking out for God’s “ordinary” miracles. Peter’s story teaches us that divine intervention in a spectacular fashion is not enough to convince us that God is working in our lives. We need to be on the lookout for how God is working miracles in our lives every, single day. Although we will see both spectacular and everyday miracles many times throughout our lives, there undoubtedly will be more of the latter than the former.
We learn from the lives of the saints. That spectacular miracles could not sustain even Peter is a lesson for us. 

Lord, remind us to search for miracles in every day. Build our faith muscles so that we know, in every moment, that You are on the move in the lives of those who need and call on You.


Donna Davis​

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