god

Confession – Intimate and healing encounter with Jesus.

“So they went off and preached repentance” (Mark 6:12).

They, being the Twelve Apostles, preached repentance. There is a pattern. John the Baptist called people to a baptism of repentance. The first words of Jesus’ public ministry were, “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Repent and believe in the Gospel” (Mark 1:15). And now in today’s Gospel, the Twelve are going off two by two preaching repentance.

What does repentance have to do with us almost two thousand years later? What repentance had to do then. We all have in the deepest part of us a yearning to belong, to be part of, to be loved. We want to be seen, heard, and understood. We want our lives to have meaning, fulfillment, and a sense of worth and dignity. This deepest longing has been placed in us to be filled by God and as we receive and abide in God’s love, we are better able to encounter and share his love with each other.

The problem is that since the Fall, we all fall short of the glory of God. The good news is that we have not been totally corrupted. We are still good. Even though we have intentionally and consciously chosen to turn away from God and seek to feed our deepest longings with something or someone other than God. We can change. We can come to realize that who and whatever we place before the Father separates us from a deeper and more intimate communion with him.

We can realize that when we sin, we turn away from God, isolate ourselves from God, and feel the loneliness of that choice. This worsens when we decide that we don’t need God, that we are self-sufficient, and can take care of ourselves. Our hunger grows and is unsatisfied by the finite ways we try to fill our infinite hunger. The answer then is to slow down, be still, and listen to the invitation of God that he constantly offers and then to decide to repent, to turn back to him, to change our heart and mind.

What we see in the path blazed by John the Baptist, Jesus, and then his Apostles are the seeds of the Sacrament of Confession which Jesus will institute with the Twelve in the upper room after his Resurrection. Jesus has experienced the loneliness of the separation that we all feel in our sinful state. Only he felt it much more intimately and profoundly as he received the full assault of the weight of all our sin on the Cross. And what did Jesus do when he met the same Twelve who betrayed him? He forgave them and called them to forgive others in his name.

Jesus instituted the Sacrament of Confession to help provide the healing we need to repent and to turn back to the Father. He gave this gift to the Apostles who then passed it on to their followers, and who then successively passed this gift on through each generation of priests to our present day. Confession is a grace, a bridge that leads back to the Father that keeps on giving for those who come to receive this miracle of healing. “Confession is the personal gift of redemption, always unique, to each person, just as each person can accept and apply it” (Confession, Adrienne von Speyr, p. 93).

God the Father loves us more than we can imagine, and he wants us to experience his love. Confession is one of the most intimate ways we can experience his love. We are only as sick as our secrets. In Confession, we can bring forth the deepest and darkest of what we have done and what we have failed to do. We don’t need to buy into the lie that we will be abandoned if anyone knew. Instead, Jesus, who was abandoned, does not abandon us. Jesus forgives, loves, heals, frees, and restores us so that we can experience what we have been created for, to be loved by God and to love him and each other in return.

Photo: Rosary walk St. Vincent De Paul Regional Seminary, Boynton Beach, FL.

Link for the Mass readings for Thursday, February 1, 2024

Let’s embrace the wonder of God’s creation and one another.

There is a sadness and an ache that accompanies today’s readings. David sins again and many people suffer because of the choices he makes as leader. In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus preached and taught in his “native place”, but for the most part, his words were not received. Because of the lack of faith of his hometown crowd, their unwillingness to trust in him, Jesus did not perform many healings or exorcisms. He was not able to bring those who knew him for the majority of his life into deeper communion with his Father.

The whole reason that the Son of God became man was to bring light to a world suffering in darkness and to reconcile humanity to their rightful place as sons and daughters of his Father. And yet, those closest to him refused the invitation such that: “he was not able to perform any mighty deed there, apart from curing a few sick people by laying his hands on them. He was amazed at their lack of faith” (Mk 6:6).

Is our world today becoming more and more like Jesus’ “native place”? Is Jesus taken for granted? Do we pay attention to him at all? Many expend more energy on cynicism, taking care of number one, and an uncritical acceptance of empiricism or scientism. Again, a sad state because science is an awesome gift. Science and faith come from the same source, our intrinsic ability to embrace the wonder of God’s creation! These two are not incompatible. Authentic faith seeks understanding. A questioning and searching mind are the ingredients for a living, relevant, and vibrant faith, and life.

Faith without reason, as well as reason without faith, leads to a more limited understanding of the vast expanse of our world. Scientism is limiting the very gift of science itself because it stops when the questions get really interesting, when the exploration goes beyond the measurable, the sensate experiences as we know them. Faith without reason can devolve into mere superstition and legalism.

Jesus invites us to resist setting limits, settling for a minimalist or cynical approach, and the hardening of our hearts. He instead is inviting us to open ourselves up to the limitless possibilities God opens up before us! There is so much to experience in God’s creation if we just slow down and are still enough to experience the wonder of our everyday moments all around us.

The Holy Spirit works through each of us when we resist keeping each other at a distance and placing each other in a box. Many of Jesus’ own people could not see Jesus as anyone other than a simple carpenter and son of Mary. There was no way he could do all the things people were saying about him.

May we resist the lie that we know all there is to know about each other. There is so much wonder to the gift of each individual, especially when we allow ourselves to expand by following the will of God for our lives and helping each other to do the same. We can experience so much more by embracing our faith and reason, opening our hearts and minds to the wonder and glory of God and each encounter with one another. As we do so, we will begin to experience God’s greatest joy, the human being fully alive!

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Photo: Short morning walk yesterday, enjoying some blue sky and sight of the moon. Mary has often been compared to the moon as she reflects the light of her Son!

Link for the Mass readings for Wednesday, January 31, 2024

God first before anyone and anything else will help us to experience more peace.

“Brothers and sisters: I should like you to be free of anxieties (I Corinthians 7:32).

Those in the Church at Corinth who heard this verse read to them as we just read or heard, would most likely have perked up. Who then, and now, would want to be in a steady state of stress? Who would rather experience a steady flow of peace, stillness, and tranquility?

Paul’s guidance to experience peace may be lost in his example of being married or not married. It is important to recognize that Paul is writing from the perspective that Jesus will be returning soon and not saying that one state is better than the other. His writings often reflect that if one is married it is good to stay married, if one is single or a virgin to stay in that state and not seek marriage.

Obedience to Jesus and his Father is the guidance that Paul gives. The husband and wife are going to feel the tension of their obedience to God and each other. They will be more divided, and this tension will grow when they put each other first over and above God. When we allow anyone or anything to have a place of priority before God there will be a greater potential for anxiety because we are placing our ultimate trust in someone or something that is finite and imperfect. When we are obedient to God and when he is first and primary in our lives, our wills will be more ordered to his will. To be obedient, we need to listen to his voice, and put his words into practice in our everyday lives.

Moses said before his death to those about to enter the promised land: “A prophet like me will the LORD, your God, raise up for you from among your own kin; to him shall you listen” (Deuteronomy 18:15).

“To him shall you listen.” As Christians, we believe Jesus is the One to whom Moses is speaking of, the one for whom we are to listen.

I remember Jesus being perturbed, angry, moved by compassion, experiencing sorrow, and extending love, healing, and mercy, but I don’t remember reading that he ever experienced anxiety. This is so because he was consistently obedient to and abided in the love of his Father. His Father also gave him authority to teach, heal, and cast out unclean spirits. Unlike the long tradition of rabbis who were given authority from those who they studied at the feet of, each rabbi would have traced their teaching pedigree through a succession of teachers back to Moses.

Jesus did not do so, and this may be one of the reasons the people were so amazed at hearing his teachings, witnessing his healing miracles, and the exorcising of unclean spirits. They wondered about where he had the authority to do, say, heal, and exorcise as he did. The demons and unclean spirits knew where Jesus got his authority from. They knew he was the Son of God and were obedient. When Jesus, as in today’s gospel, commands the unclean spirit to come out of the man, the spirit obeys. May we obey as well to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and strength, and our neighbor as ourselves, in that order.

It may seem counter intuitive to place God before those closest in our lives; our spouse, family, and our friends, and even before ourselves, as Paul guides us to. Even if we do understand the principle, we may find it hard to put it into practice. David Kaiser-Cross, who was the associate pastor at Jupiter First Congregational Church, explained to me that if we put God first and strive to improve our relationship with him, as we grow closer to God, we grow closer to each other.

This is possible because as we receive and abide in God’s love, we are changed. We become more patient, more attentive, present, understanding, and loving. We experience forgiveness and healing. We are more grateful for what we have received. All of these graces lead us away from a selfish or grasping posture, and as we heal, we become less reactive, less insecure, less anxious, and more available to help others to heal and grow.

The more we are obedient and surrender to the commands of Jesus and put his guidance into practice in our lives, the more we will experience, not oppression but freedom, and the same peace that he experienced, “that peace that surpasses all understanding” (Philippian 4:5).

When we incorporate a daily practice of making time to be still, step away from our daily activities, even good and healthy ones and relationships, and rest and abide in the Father’s love, our anxiety will become less, and our peace and tranquility will become more. As challenges and conflicts arise, we will no longer be clinging to the person with white knuckles because of our fear of losing them, we will instead be more apt to remember to turn to Jesus, invite him into our situation because he is our anchor instead of them. We will be better able to let go of the unhealthy attachments that we have and allow for more breathing space between each other.

We will see our way through each crossroad with less stress, feel more of a sense of freedom and joy as we overcome our challenges. We will feel more stable and secure in our relationships with Jesus and each other as we work through each conflict. We will not feel we have to run away from or deny conflict as long as we remember that as we begin where we are right now, we are loved by Jesus as we are. May that reality be our foundation so that as we learn and mature, step by faithful step, we will consciously choose to be more patient and gentler with ourselves and each other.

Photo: One of the ways I have been experiencing more of God’s peace has been during my evening Rosary walks.

Link for the Mass readings for Sunday, January 28, 2024

Faith in Jesus instead of our anxieties and fears brings peace and stillness.

“Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith” (Mark 4:40)?

Jesus asked this question of his apostles after he quieted the wind and the waves. These were seasoned fisherman, so for them this must have been quite the storm. They even thought that they were not going to survive it as the waves not only tossed their boat but it also began to take on more and more water.

The question of faith was directed at their trust in him. Did they believe that Jesus was who he said he was and showed himself to be. If so, all would be well. Jesus called his apostles and brought them into his inner circle so they could not only experience his teaching, healings, and exorcisms but also to get to know him as the Son of God. As with any relationships, this takes time, and their faith, their trust in him in all circumstances was still growing. But as we read yesterday, faith as small as a mustard seed, will bring large results. This would come to pass with the apostles as well in time.

Our anxieties, fears, and insecurities are a good barometer of our faith in Jesus. These emotions are human and good in themselves as they are alerting us to a real or perceived threat. The challenge is to discern the real from the perceived and to determine when the threat has passed.

Where these emotions become a problem is when we believe in, place our faith in, and identify ourselves by them. Instead of saying to ourselves, I feel anxious, we define ourselves as anxious. Doing the opposite by denying and stuffing our emotions and feelings do not help either.

Jesus can help us to calm the real storms as well as the perceived storms in our lives. He can help and empower us to sit with our emotions, and ultimately get to the source of them and identify the root, identify if it is perceived or real, and then work through it. As with the apostles, when we continue to turn to Jesus, our faith and trust in him will grow, and we will also heal, mature, and grow through the storms in our lives.

Easier said than done? Yes for both our real and imagined storms. But for either, as we place our trust in Jesus, persevere, claim our authority in his name to renounce any attacks of the enemy, all things are possible!

Photo: Storm clouds on the way during retreat in January, all was calm and still.

Link for the Mass readings for Saturday, January 27, 2024

The way of Jesus leads to forgiveness.

Today we celebrate the Conversion of St. Paul. Saul, before he was Paul, was a stellar Pharisee and defender of his faith. He learned at the feet of one of the top rabbi’s of his time, Gamaliel, and as he himself said, was “zealous for God”. So much so that he “persecuted this Way to death” (Acts 22:3-4). The Way was the term used early on for those Jewish people who followed Jesus.

The turning point for Saul was his miraculous encounter with Jesus as he was on his way to Damascus to persecute more people of the Way. The phrase that Jesus used when he spoke, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me” (Acts 22:7) was an interesting one. He could have said, “Why are you persecuting my Church, the children of God, your brothers and sisters” or any other choice, but instead he chose, “Why are you persecuting me?”

Jesus is showing the intimate connection that he has achieved through his being born as one of us, suffering and dying and conquering death for each of us, rising and ascending back to the right hand of the Father, still fully human and divine, such that he can come at this point and time to have an encounter with his most zealous of persecutors of the Way.

The encounter with Jesus is enough. Saul is stunned beyond anything he could have imagined. He was not struck by a sword, a smashing blow, or a trip wire across his path. He was stopped by a great light that surrounded him. Jesus, the “light that shines in the darkness” (John 1:5) did not condemn him, nor punish him. He asked a question and then told him what he was going to do next.

It would take another three years for Saul to work out this encounter, but once he did so, he made an incredible 180 degree turn in his life. The Way who he had been persecuting would now become the major focus of his life. He surrendered totally to Jesus and gave everything he had, even his life.

The encounter that Saul had with Jesus offers us a very strong message that we need to allow to sink into the depths of our being. There is nothing that we have done that God will not forgive us for. As Saul said, he was “persecuting this Way to death.” St. Stephen was at least one of those who died at Saul’s command. If anything just came to mind, if just the mere hint of a whisper, “Oh but God will not forgive…” Fill in the blank or blanks. Sorry, that is the voice of the liar, the deceiver, the enemy. That is not God’s voice. Don’t believe it for a minute, for a second. Renounce that thought in the name of Jesus.

God will forgive us. Period. Full stop. As we heard a few days ago. Jesus who was beginning his public ministry said, “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15). That is exactly what Saul did and became Paul and a saint. That is what we are invited to do this morning.

Photo: Rosary walk during canonical retreat at Bethany Center, Lutz, FL.

Link for the Mass readings for Thursday, January 25, 2024

We will mature when we keep God first.

God loves us and he shows us this love by caring, providing, guiding, convicting, forgiving, healing, and saving us from our fallen tendencies. We are more open to receive his love and the gifts of his presence in our lives when we are willing to acknowledge that God is God, and we are not, and that we need and depend on him. God is our Father, and we are his beloved children.

This may seem like a small matter, but it is not. The moment we begin to place ourselves, anyone, and/or anything before God, we open ourselves up for trouble. We saw this with the kingship of Saul and are now beginning to see the cracks in David’s foundation as king.

Building a temple for God sounds like a reasonable and pious thing to do, but God, through the prophet Nathan convicted David: “Thus says the LORD: Should you build me a house to dwell in” (2 Samuel 7:5)? God then continues to outline how he never had asked before through any of the patriarchs or judges for a dwelling, and shared how he brought David out from the shepherd fields, made him King, defeated his enemies, and provided for him, and it would be God who would build a house and a kingdom that would endure forever.

Jesus helps us to understand how, like David, we can miss the mark when he told and interpreted the Parable of the Sower. God sews his seed as creator and the key is whether we receive it and care for it or not. There are forces that can counter God’s gift, like Satan, the accuser and liar, who through his lies, temptations, and manipulations steals the seeds from us.

Those who do receive them also can have challenges. Some receive them with great joy, but do not savor and care for the gift given. They only receive God’s word in the moment at the surface level of their emotions, but do not do anything to foster its growth. There is no root to anchor them in times of trouble. Anxieties, worries, distractions, and diversions, choke out any growth that may begin after the seeds have taken root and begun to grow.

When we keep God first in our lives before all else, he will help us to prepare our soil so that the seeds he sows finds rich and healthy soil. This takes time and energy on our part to follow his guidance and those in our lives that he speaks through. The effort and discipline expended are well worth the effort and will bear great fruit in our lives and those we serve.

Photo: A pine sapling here at the seminary off to a good start!

Link for the Mass readings for Wednesday, January 24, 2024

Mary said, “Yes” to life. May we as well.

In casting out more unclean spirits, Jesus is not supported by the scribes but he is instead being accused of doing so by the power of “Beelzebul,” the prince of demons, which may be reference to an ancient Canaanite god. Jesus countered by asking, “How can Satan drive out Satan” (Mark 3:23)?

There are evil forces, principalities, and powers in this world, and they seek to wreak havoc, destruction, and division. Jesus shows from the beginning of his ministry that he has power over Satan and his fallen angels in league with him. The weakest Christian is mightier than Satan himself for he or she can call on the sacred name of Jesus and Satan and his minions will flee.

The power of the enemy is in their subtle attacks of our minds. From the get-go in Eden, Satan sought and continues to seek to distort the good that God has created. He and his demons seek to turn us away from God by whispering to us lies and half-truths, presenting apparent goods, and even using the words of the Bible against us as he did with Jesus in the desert.

Our defense against the enemy is to build our foundation on our relationship with Jesus. We need to daily spend time in prayer and scripture, spiritual reading, discerning God’s will and his voice, being open to be loved by him and loving one another. We are to participate in the Mass and the sacraments, especially Reconciliation often. Many other diversions, distractions, and enticements will lead us away from these pursuits, so we need to be more intentional with our choices.

The simple question we need to ask ourselves is does what we pay attention to bring us closer to God or lead us away. This is true regarding not just in our spiritual pursuits, but also all aspects of our lives. Our diet, exercise, rest, recreation, study, and work, all our daily activities can either lead us away from or closer to our relationship with God and one another.

The greatest gift of choosing God in each of our activities is that we will also be able to discern his voice over that of the enemy. One of the most dangerous lies that the enemy has sewn into the fabric of our world and has unfortunately taken firm root is that the unborn is not a human being.

There are many reasons why someone may choose to have an abortion and each of them are serious and need to be addressed with care, compassion, support, and help, but that does not change the truth that from the moment of conception there is a new being distinct from her or his mother or father with everything physiologically needed as well as a soul imparted by God to continue to develop, not into, but as a human being. The only difference between me writing and you reading is that they are smaller and more vulnerable. All that is needed is protection, care, and the proper support, which we all need as well.

Today is The Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children. May we match our prayers with our determination to provide the assistance and needed care for all human beings no matter who they are or what stage of life they are in. The truth that can help us on our way is that Jesus died for each and everyone of us, born and unborn, slave or free, with or without a country, no matter our, race, gender, ethnicity, nationality, or creed, because he respects our dignity as a child of God. We make better decisions for the betterment of our world when we see each other as human beings created in the image and likeness of God.

Photo: Beginning of Rosary walk each night with Mary, St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary, Boynton Beach, FL.

Link for the Mass readings for Monday, January 22, 2024

Repentance frees us from death and brings us life.

“This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the Gospel” (Mark 1:15).

God, who is beyond time and space, who is infinite, has a plan and a proper time and place to implement his plan. God invites. He does not impose. God invites us to participate in his plan, but he also gives us the freedom to refuse and walk away.

God called Jonah to preach repentance to the people of Nineveh and Jonah refused because he believed that they would repent, and that God would forgive them. Jonah walked in the opposite direction. That did not go so well. The ship embarked upon was caught in a terrible storm and the people threw him overboard to save themselves. Jonah spent three days in the belly of a great fish. While there, he repented to God, agreed to fulfill his vow to do God’s will. The great fish spit him back out on land and in the direction that God wanted him to go in the first place.

Jonah got the point, did as he was called to do, and the whole city was saved from the impending wrath of God. The people were saved because they repented. They turned back to God and away from their sinful ways. Jonah was not happy about it and God gave him another lesson.

Uncomfortable with the heat of the sun, God “provided a gourd plant” which gave Jonah relief. The next morning a worm ate the plant and Jonah was subjected to the hot east wind and the beating of the sun, so complained to God to take his life. God then asked Jonah, “Do you have a right to be angry over the gourd plant” (Jonah 4:9). Jonah said he did and then God pointed out how Jonah was upset over the loss of one gourd plant that came to be in one day and was lost in the next. How much would God mourn the loss of “more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons” (Jonah 4:11)?

God feels the same way about each one of us. He does not want any of us to be lost. He loves us more than we can imagine, more than we can ever mess up or sin, and he does not define us by our worst moments. God also wants us to know that this life that we have is a beautiful gift, but this is not it. All that exists besides God is finite and material and will not last. We are not to hold on too tightly to the things of this world because as St. Paul shared, “For the world in its present form is passing away” (I Corinthians 7:31).

This is not something to be down about because God sent his Son to become the first born of the new creation. He sent him at a particular time a place and Jesus came to let us know that there is something even better awaiting us – eternal life with his Father.

How do we get to share this wonderful gift? We do what Jonah and Saul who became Paul did. We follow the invitation of Jesus that I started this homily with. “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the Gospel” (Mark 1:15).

This is the time. God dwells in the eternal present. This moment is the time for us to recognize that Jesus is with us. He is the kingdom of God present in our midst, in my typing and your reading these words. We just need to make a choice, are we going to refuse his invitation and walk away or accept his invitation to repent and surrender our lives to him?

To repent means to turn back, to reorient, to realign our lives to the will of God our loving Father. When we do so we are no longer alone. God who has always been present with us is accessible because Jesus gave his life that we might have life and have access to his Father. When we decide to turn back to him, we will experience and receive his help and enter into and continue to develop a relationship with him. Turning back to God does not mean our lives will become perfect or that our struggles, trials, and traumas will just evaporate. Turning back to God does mean that we will have his help, strength, guidance, and support.

Repentance is a lifelong journey of allowing Jesus to reveal to us that which we need to let go of, that we have placed before God, or put first instead of God, and have the humility to begin to let go. As we begin to let go, Jesus will reveal more to let go. Step by step, choice by choice, we will become less, and Jesus will become more in our lives. As we become more consistent in choosing each day and each present moment to say, “Yes,” to the will of God, we will grow closer to him and experience more joy, peace, and love in our lives.

Photo: Step by step, Jesus will guide us through this life and into heaven. My view coming back from my Rosary walk each night, St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary, Boynton Beach, FL.

Link for the Mass readings for Sunday, January, 21, 2024

Foretaste of Heaven

The word about what Jesus is doing is getting out. He is a healer, an exorcist, a blasphemer. All of which draw people from the surrounding region. Those gathering around Jesus surpass now the number of those who were coming to see John the Baptist and with the interest and growing need, people are moving in at such a steady number in an effort to touch Jesus that he asked his disciples to get his boat ready. He could then get in it and avoid being crushed by the crowd.

Jesus is meeting the need of the hunger of the people. Who doesn’t want to be free of physical ailments and unclean spirits? Ultimately, the account in today’s Gospel is a foretaste of the heavenly kingdom, for Jesus as he announced at the beginning of his ministry is the “kingdom of God at hand.” He who is united with the Father through the love of the Holy Spirit has become one with us in our humanity so that we can become one with him in his divinity.

Jesus can still meet the deepest needs we yearn for in the depths of our souls of wanting to belong, be seen, heard, healed, and loved. What ushers in this reality for us is the same choice that needed to be made back in Jesus’ time. Do we believe that Jesus is who he said he is? And the answer to this question is not a one and done answer. This needs to be answered and on our mind more often than not if Jesus is going to be relevant in our lives.

Who and what is important to us we make time for. When we make time for Jesus, Jesus will become more real to us. Setting aside time to pray, to participate in Mass, read and meditate upon the gospels, invite him into our decisions, thank him for our daily successes and ask him for help in our struggles, see him in our relationships with others, and being silent and still together, are ways that we will encounter Jesus and grow in our relationship with him so that we too can experience a foretaste of heaven.

Photo: Mass at St. Joseph Catholic Church, Poquonock, CT during my visit back home during our Christmas break. Mass, where heaven and earth are wedded together.

Link for the Mass readings for Thursday, January 18, 2024

“Speak, your servant is listening.”

God.

Even if we believe in God, do we make the time to think or ponder about God? Doing so may be difficult because there are so many diversions and distractions and we can be busy, busy, busy, and anxious about so many things that we can even take each other for granted, those who we see in a concrete and tangible way right before us.

We, being finite and so small, how can we even begin to comprehend God? He is transcendent and infinite, meaning he is not just another being among the many beings of creation. He is not even a supreme being. God is the foundation, the creator, the redeemer of all of creation. All that God has created has come to be as an outpouring of his love. Nothing would exist, we would not exist, without God. And even though he seems so far beyond our reach, God is closer to us than we are to ourselves!

Jesus helps us to understand this truth when he gives us the Lord’s Prayer. The first line tells us so much: “Our Father who art in heaven” (Matthew 6:9). The words who art, meaning who is, in heaven while we are here on earth, represents the reality that he is so beyond us. God transcends all space and time, and yet… Jesus begins this prayer, that we have been saying generation after generation since he taught his apostles and others, that the One who is in heaven is our Father. We are to address and relate to the infinite God not as some impersonal, random force, but as Father. In a healthy and whole sense, that is an intimate and close relationship.

How do we then relate to “Our Father, who art in Heaven”? The first reading and the gospel can be of help.

The young Samuel who has been dedicated by his mother Hannah to serve in the temple at Shiloh has woken up three times hearing, who he thought was the priest, Eli, call his name. Eli confirmed that it was not he who spoke. He then guided Samuel that if his name was called again, to say, “Speak, for your servant is listening” (I Samuel 3:10). Which Samuel does and God speaks.

God can speak to us directly or as Joseph and Mary experienced through the intercession of angels. This happens most often as with Samuel, Mary, and Joseph in times of quiet. As St. Mother Teresa taught, “God speaks in the silence of the heart.” It is not so much that we have to go looking for God because as the foundation of our being and our loving Father, he is already inviting us to encounter and experience him. Our very desire to seek him is our first awareness of his invitation to enter into a relationship with him. What is needed is that we learn to stop and listen, and then like Samuel, come to know and distinguish his voice.

We can also come to know God through the guidance of others. In our Gospel today, John the Baptist points his disciples to Jesus and says, “Behold the Lamb of God” (John 1:36). There are people in our lives that have experienced the voice of God, developed a relationship with him, and they can guide us as John did.

Some other ways that I have experienced God speak to me in the silence of my heart has been through my own personal reading of the Bible, times of prayer and meditation, hearing his word proclaimed in Mass, through Jesus, present in the Eucharist, through music, in experiencing the beauty of creation, spiritual direction, and experiences with many others who have guided me. None of these experiences have been booming, mystical encounters. Most have been quiet urgings, prods, and invitations.

The other challenge is that we hear so many voices inside and outside of our minds that we need to develop and discern whose voice we are listening to. Understandably, when Samuel first heard his name called, he would think it to be Eli. It took a bit for Eli to also recognize what was happening. Discerning God’s voice in the midst of so many voices in our world today is a challenge.

The enemy and the liar also seek to undo and destroy us. He and his demons will do the opposite of God and the angels. They will entice and tempt us to choose apparent goods that will lead us away from God and what will truly make us happy, then condemn us for doing so and seek to get a hold in our minds to continue to isolate us.

The voice of the Father, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and his angels, convict us when we are doing or choosing something that leads us astray, but the choice is still ours to make as well as receiving the consequences. No matter what, God is right beside us to catch us when we fall, forgives us, and heals us when we are willing to come back to him. As soon as we do, he will embrace us with open arms.

There is no limit to the ways that God communicates to us. He knows us best and he knows what will open our hearts and minds to him most. What we need to do is learn to slow ourselves down, be willing to take some deep breaths, be still, say, “Speak, Lord your servant is listening”, continue to be still, listen in the moment and throughout the day and each day and allow God to happen!

As we more consistently do so, we will begin to discern better the deceptive voices of the enemy, be able to renounce them, and free ourselves from his grasp. We will also recognize God’s voice, experience his forgiveness, healing, and love and will be freer to live lives of meaning, fulfillment, and joy and help others to do the same.

Photo: St. Mary’s Chapel, St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary, Boynton Beach, FL., one of my favorite places to pray and listen for God’s voice.

Link for the Mass readings for Sunday, January 14, 2023