Neutral atoms trapping

credit: Jagellonian University

Have you ever considered that what was impossible years ago - or even yesterday - has now become a possibility? Advances in science have changed the way we live. Technology has brought us the ability to communicate with each other via the Internet. Medicine has introduced new drugs and treatments that were the stuff of science fiction not that long ago. Aeronautics has put mankind and satellites into space. Yet these next decades will unlock knowledge and foster discoveries so that today’s impossibilities will be tomorrow’s regular fare. This is a miraculous era in which to live.

Some things are still unexplained. Others may never be explained - they remain in the realm of the unexplainable. One scientist at an American university recently commented that the really brilliant scientists acknowledge that the more they study the field of science, the more they recognize how little they really know. The more one knows, the more humble one grows in the face of what remains to be known. Perhaps it is a sign of the beginner that, having learned some, he or she believes him or herself to have a respectable grasp of the whole.

Miracles are one of those categories of the impossible. Perhaps we can describe what happened but not why it occurred or how it happened. Sometimes the unexplained rests in the timing of an event. Or the unexplained could be the persons or the place of the miracle.

Science tends to consider miracles as events just now unexplainable. But one day... But even if we were able to dissect a miracle and understand the mechanics, there are still other loose ends to tie up.

Is there still a sense of awe and mystery in your view of the world?

For Reflection:

• Describe your point of view concerning the miraculous in life.
• Do you think that one day we will be able to explain what seems now to be miraculous? Does this thought bring you comfort or distress?