Lent with Bossuet – Meditations on the Gospel (19)

Man is Clothed with the Power of God Through Faith and Prayer

All that you ask in my name, you shall receive. You will be able to do all that I am able to do. You will do all of the greatest things that you have seen me do, and you will do even greater things.

In fact, someone was cured on touching the hem of the robe of Jesus Christ while He was wearing it. But not only the clothes which had touched the Apostles’ bodies had this virtue, but their very shadow: when Peter came, his shadow at the least, might overshadow any of them, and they might be delivered from their infirmities (Acts 5:15).

Here, therefore, is the greatest miracle of Jesus Christ. Not only is He all-powerful, but here He renders man all-powerful and, if possible, more powerful than Him. And all this through faith and through prayer: “and all things whatsoever you shall ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive” (Mt.12:22). Faith, therefore, and prayer are all-powerful, and they clothe man with the omnipotence of God. “If thou canst believe,” said the Saviour, “all things are possible to him that believeth” (Mk. 9:22).

Therefore, the difficulty is not doing miracles, the difficulty is to believe. “If thou canst believe.” That is the miracle of miracles, to believe perfectly and without hesitation.