At that time Jesus left [Samaria] for Galilee.
For Jesus himself testified
that a prophet has no honor in his native place.
When he came into Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him,
since they had seen all he had done in Jerusalem at the feast;
for they themselves had gone to the feast.

Then he returned to Cana in Galilee,
where he had made the water wine.
Now there was a royal official whose son was ill in Capernaum.

—John 4:43–46

Jesus bypasses Nazareth, where He had been scorned and rejected (a prophet has no honor in his native place) and returns to Cana, place of public miracles. Both at the turning of water into wine and at the healing of the royal official’s son, Cana was receptive to Jesus where Nazareth was not. Cana was nearby to Nazareth, but just far enough away to be able to see the big picture of Jesus’s mission without being distracted by familiar, seemingly ordinary details of this man. The people of Cana had no preconceived notions of Jesus, no reason to be jaded; they did not see Him as ordinary, and thus it was easier for them to recognize His presence as extraordinary.

It is harder to recognize the miracles that are woven into the fabric of our ordinary life, to find wonder in the sacredness of the Mass when it is habitual and commonplace to us. While it’s good for our spirituality to become ingrained and habitual, it also means that we are in danger of taking these miracles for granted. We might close ourselves off from a real relationship with God by treating our prayer like a mundane chore instead of the incredible gift that it truly is. If we grew up surrounded by the sacraments, we might not realize how amazing they are. We might not expect a miracle amidst our regular, day-to-day existence.

But it is possible to nurture a sense of wonder toward everyday miracles. We can learn to see the sacred in our ordinary lives and hone our awareness that miracles can come from even the most unlikely of places—right under our noses. In order to experience a miracle, there must already be a foundation of faith: faith that God can work through any means, even humble ones, to do great things.