There Are Signs Of The Times And Signs In Our Lives And We Do Well To Heed Them

By Michael H. Brown

When we practice faith in things both large and small -- when we're persistent in faith and prayer (and when we never allow discouragement to set the tone) -- we can expect miracles.

Sometimes, they take time; sometimes they come gradually. Or in ways we didn't design. But they come. It's inevitable.

No exercise of good faith is ever wasted. If we maintain faith in all things -- if we keep exercising it, if we keep tossing out prayer seeds -- it's only a matter of time before a big prayer is answered in a miraculous way and signs flow like a river.

That's what I want to address today: signs.

We must exercise great caution with this, of course: as it says in Scripture, a generation that tests God by asking for a sign (that is, requesting one for the wrong reason, such as trying to make God prove Himself) is a generation of vipers.

At the other extreme is an adulterous generation that ignores the legitimate signs from Heaven.

“God speaks quietly,” Pope Benedict XVI once said. “But He gives us all kinds of signs. In retrospect, especially, we can see that He has given us a little nudge through a friend, through a book, or through what we see as a failure – even through ‘accidents.’ Life is actually full of these silent indications. If we remain alert, then slowly they piece together a consistent whole, and I begin to feel how God is guiding me.”

When we pray, such signs fill all our lives. They come to form us for the permanence of Heaven.

Can we ask for signs on occasion? Perhaps, as long as we are not testing God. Some call them “confirmations.” There are examples in Scripture. But in due course, God sends them anyway, and to everyone. The strongest ones are not requested.

Let us know about the signs in your life [click here].

Even those who profess no religion are often swayed by what might be called “meaningful coincidences,” as the Pope indicated.

God has an old friend call just as you’re thinking of that old buddy or places someone in your path who says something you needed to know at that moment. Or He leads you to a passage in Scripture with an especially pertinent sentence.

There are signs, but we are not to treat them as augurs – as a method of fortunetelling -- and we should never become obsessed with them. We cannot call up such signs at will; the authentic ones occur spontaneously. In the Old Testament, most of the omens were large events like those brought against the pharaoh – or attendant to Moses – while in the New Testament the “signs” usually refer to the charisms of the disciples: healing, casting out demons, speaking in tongues.

When we pursue these, we are in the flow of the Holy Spirit -- and when we are in the flow of the Holy Spirit, God sends His indications much more readily.

The greatest signs are always how we feel internally.

There are markers sent from Heaven, and they often manifest in the way that things go – whether they are easy or not so easy. Although resistance sometimes comes from the enemy, or simply from the tests of life, when there are too many roadblocks -- when we are banging our heads against a wall, when nothing is falling into place, or when we are unsure and can’t gain certainty, despite prayer -- what we’re doing is not in God’s plan.

There may be other kinds of indications. We lived in a home with the office in the basement. It was a nice workplace, but it was still a basement, and so it was dark. For years we had been contemplating a move, possibly to Florida, where many ministries are located.

When we did move to Florida, virtually every major event occurred on a feast day. We got the offer for our home the first day we had the for-sale sign up (which was August 15, the Feast of the Assumption). We received the purchase agreement days later, on the feast of Our Lady of Knock, where I had been on pilgrimage. As I recall, we signed the agreement the next day -- on the Queenship of Mary. I went down to Florida to secure a lot on the feast of Our Lady of LaSalette and we were sent our purchase agreement for the construction of our new home on September 29 -- which is the feast of my patron, the Archangel Michael.

Every day is a day for certain saints, but these all were major feasts that seemed to sail beyond coincidence. Throughout the move we asked for the intercession of St. Joseph -- and as it turned out my in-laws, who moved with us, closed on their house the week of St. Joseph’s feast – in fact, the check probably cleared on his very day! By “coincidence,” a statue of him was on the dining room table (set there out of reach of our baby) where they signed the final papers.

We didn’t plan any of it but were confused, the way things had gone, that the day of our own closing was not a major feast day, only to realize later that it was the Feast of St. Lucy and it was a woman named Lucy who was buying our home.

Not that we engineered the move based on signs. That would be dangerous. The devil is only too happy to come in and manipulate.

But at times God lends us guidance through signs, and we are to integrate these signs into our intuition.

Mostly, signs come to direct or reorient us.

When we finally moved, we were hoping it would be May 13, which is an anniversary attached to the apparition at Fatima. The movers couldn’t swing that, but later they had a schedule change and ended up leaving our old house on May 13!

For further info on the number 13

05/13/05

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