Part II

13. What Is A Miracle?

A miracle is a correction. It does not create, nor really change at all. It merely looks on devastation and reminds the mind that what it sees is false. It undoes error, but does not attempt to go beyond perception, nor exceed the function of forgiveness. Thus it stays within time’s limits. Yet it paves the way for the return of timelessness and love’s awakening, for fear must slip away under the gentle remedy it gives.

2. A miracle contains the gift of grace, for it is given and received as one. And thus it illustrates the law of truth the world does not obey, because it fails entirely to understand its ways. A miracle inverts perception which was upside down before, and thus it ends the strange distortion that were manifest. Now is perception open to the truth. Now is forgiveness seen as justified.

3. Forgiveness is the home of miracles. The eyes of Christ deliver them to all they look upon in mercy and in love. Perception stands corrected in His sight, and what was meant to curse has come to bless. Each lily of forgiveness offers all the world the silent miracle of love. And each is laid before the Word of God upon the universal altar to Creator and creation, in the light of perfect purity and endless peace.

4. The miracle is taken first on faith, because to ask for it implies the mind has been made ready to conceive of what it cannot see and does not understand. Yet faith will bring its witnesses to show that what it rested on is really there. And thus the miracle will justify your faith in it, and show it rested on a world more real than what you saw before; a world redeemed from what you thought you saw.

5. Miracles fall like drops of healing rain from Heaven on a dry and dusty world where starved and thirsty creatures come to die.¹⁵⁸ Now they have water. Now the world is green. And everywhere the signs of life spring up, to show that what is born can never die, for what has life has immortality.

Lesson 341

I Can Attack But My Own Sinlessness, And It Is Only That Which Keeps Me Safe.

Father, Your Son is holy, I am he on whom You Smile in love and tenderness so deep and dear and still, the universe smiles back on You and shares Your holiness. How pure, how safe, how sacred, then, are we, abiding in Your smile, with all Your love bestowed upon us, living one with You, in brotherhood and fatherhood complete; in sinlessness so perfect that the Lord of sinlessness conceives us as His Son, a universe of thought completing Him.

2. Let us not, then, attack our sinlessness. For it contains the Word of God to us, and in its kind reflection we are saved.^[1].

[1]. A Course In Miracles Complete & Annotated Edition.

Footnote 158. William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice: The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed: It blesseth him that gives and him that takes. The allusion to these famous lines from Shakespeare’s implies that miracles are an interpersonal expression of mercy or forgiveness, and that they bring blessing to “him that gives and him that takes” (see 2:1: “[the miracle] is given and received as one”). The above passage also develops Shakespeare’s image of rain from Heaven, depicting it as falling on a desert world, one devoid of the water of life-giving love. The drops of healing miracles thus bring that world back to life, demonstrating that life can never die.

Personal Notes:

I can attack but my own sinlessness, and it is only that which keeps me safe. I meditate on above prayer today, and in quiet I wait to hear my Father’s Voice. I pray for all my brothers and myself for continued guidance, wisdom, discernment, protection, and illumination, of The Way, The Truth, The Life, in Christ Jesus, Amen. Thank you for sharing with me. Walk in Love my friend!

God is Love

Love is God

I choose Love