Faith is a necessary condition for recognising the signs of God's presence and action in our history. The signs are there everywhere. But given the hardness of our hearts we are unable to perceive them for what they are. The signs of His presence are ordinary like bread. The Pharisees had failed to understand the miraculous distribution of bread to 5,000 people, just as the Israelites in the desert complained incessantly even though the Lord God had fed them with manna and had delivered them from the Egyptians miraculously.

Faith does not depend on miracles. But for miracles to take place there should be the attitude of faith, namely, a vision by which we see everything and every situation from the standpoint of God. "Mary kept all these things pondering them in her heart" (Lk. 2:19).

The antidote for the hardness of our heart is faith-filled vision and constant effort to read the signs of the times. Vatican II considers the reading of the "signs of the times" as an important aspect of our spirituality. (Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World No. 11).

We certainly need the gift of wisdom (Jas. 1:5) from God to be able to discern in our own lives "signs" of growth and "signs" of decay: to be able to ride over the vicissitudes of life in serenity and peace knowing God's love comes to us when we most need it.