Years ago I saw a man healed from an impossible situation. He had metal screws in his neck for few years after a workout incident and couldn’t move his head to the right or to the left. It was physically impossible to do so. He was in continual pain. He was a pastor who couldn’t do his job for few years by then. Our team prayed with his fam present there, and after about 40 min or so he started moving his head and the pain was slowly subsiding. It was a stunning moment. We were speechless.

He went back to pastoring.

Few years later he got divorced and, I believe, left ministry soon after.

I was speechless.

Today’s Gospel says that if we don’t live from the place where we cling to the living, breathing, life-changing, penetrating, consuming, fear of God invoking, meditated and integrated, reliable, always moving and powerful Word of God, no supernatural miracle, sign or wonder will be able to sustain His actual Presence within us. A human heart is hungry for a continual loving intimacy which exceeds anything else. The burning Word-Love given and received can brew new content of never ceasing wonder.

The man enriched with visible manifestation of God’s power might end up in the place of torment. We need the poverty of a heart to stay in the place of grace.

If our practice of living in expectation of signs and wonders does not invoke the filial fear of the Father in us, then the temptation to rely just on the testimonies of the past might overpower the current grace given for the transformative action of the Spirit. The obedience to cultivate life coming from the proclaimed Word invites us to live by faith not by sight.

Last part of todays’ Luke 16:19-31

“But Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the prophets.

Let them listen to them.'

He said, 'Oh no, father Abraham,

but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.'

Then Abraham said, 'If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets,

neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.'"

P.S. Gr. ‘hades’ used in this passage is a transitory state after physical death and before Christs’ judgment, not a commonly modern ‘hell’ understood as a state of eternal judgment.