Why do we not see miracles?

Why do we not see miracles? Let him who can, answer otherwise, but to me it seems that we are of necessity brought to this answer: We do not see miracles, or we see them rarely, either because they are invisible to us as unworthy of trust, or because they are not even accomplished, through unbelief or want of faith.

How can miracles be accomplished in us by prayer, when our prayer is short, cold, inattentive, and offered up, not so much in faith and filial love to God, as in a sort of involuntary submission to His law?

How can a spiritual word work miracles in us, when our heart, like a field wild with tares, is thickly sown with idle words, and overgrown by carnal desires and unlawful thoughts?

How can the Holy Mysteries work miracles in us, if we approach them but from absolute necessity, without a care­ful previous purification, without an ardent aspiration to be united to God?

Let us, my brethren, call upon the Lord Who is unceasingly working miracles unto our salvation, and both each for all and all for each, let us cry to Him with the Apostles, Lord, increase our faith. (Lk 17:5).

St. Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow (+1867)