IS YOUR MIND OPEN ENOUGH TO BELIEVE IN MIRACLES?

 

GIVEN YESTERDAY AT THE LITLE SISTERS OF THE POOR 

No one pours new wine into old wineskins. New wine is poured into fresh wineskins.

Mark 2:22

One of my very favorite books is entitled “The Art of Possibility” by Rosamund ad Benjamin Zander. The reason I find it so useful and intriguing is that I, too, believe that with an open mind more things are possible than we can ever imagine. The realization of the impossible begins with an open mind. When I have consciously and deliberately kept my mind open, I have seen “miracles” unfold more times than I can count. Negative thinking kills the possible. Here are a couple of examples from real life.

A shoe factory once sent two marketing scouts to a region of Africa to study the prospects for expanding the shoe business. One sent back a telegram that said, “Situation hopeless. No one wears shoes.” The other sent back a telegram saying, “Great business opportunity. They have no shoes.”

Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, responded negatively to the idea of investing in computers in 1943 by saying, “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” As late as 1977, Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corporation said, “There is no reason anyone would want a computer in his home.”

As a child, if I had not decided to reject it, I would have been a victim of this kind of negative thinking. I heard it often enough to remember it, “Life is something that happens to you and all you can do is make the most of it!” Several significant adults in my life told me that I had no chance at all of making it through the seminary. Even my pastor told me as I was leaving for the seminary, “I’ll fill out these papers, but you won’t make it till Christmas.” I was even called a “hopeless case” by my minor seminary rector here in Louisville.

When I first arrived as pastor of our Cathedral downtown, the former pastor told me, “Father Knott, don’t get your hopes up! Nothing can be done downtown! There aren’t any Catholics living downtown anymore!” I rejected his warning and repeated over and over again to the congregation, “Who said we only get one golden age?” During the 14 years I served there, we grew from 110 parishioners to over 2,100 parishioners and completed a $22,000,000 renovation and restoration!

Because of these experiences, I stay in a mild state of irritation at our church because I believe that the biggest shortage in the Catholic Church is not money or priests, but plain old imagination and faith! No wonder we have a vocation crisis. No wonder we are closing parishes. We are hopelessly mired in downward spiraling talk about both issues. Where are the can-do people who can see an alternative to our hopeless resignation?

Jesus tells us that God needs an open mind, a “new wineskin,” to do his work of making all things new. Mary understood this when she said “yes” to God. She knew that when an open mind cooperates with God, then “all things are possible.”

I pray for this kind of mind and heart. My prayer for this kind of mind and heart can be summed up in the words of Soren Kierkegaard when he said, “If I were to wish for anything I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of what can be, for the eye, which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible.”  C.S. Lewis said this, “God gives His gifts where he finds the vessel empty enough to receive them.”

Yes, the power of an open mind filled with belief can move mountains!