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Listening to God's Voice
October 21st Readings Reflection: Saturday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time
Today’s Gospel ends with one of my favourite passages in the New Testament: “When they take you before synagogues and before rulers and authorities, do not worry about how or what your defense will be or about what you are to say. For the Holy Spirit will teach you at that moment what you should say.”
While we may never be taken before “rulers and authorities” and interrogated for our Faith, we still have many opportunities throughout our lives to explain and defend the Faith to those who do not share our beliefs. Such situations can be overwhelming and fill us with a sense of inadequacy. We are not to fear, however, for Jesus has promised that “the Holy Spirit will teach [us] at that moment what [we] should say.”
The key, then, is attentiveness to the Holy Spirit. If we are not accustomed to listening to the Holy Spirit in our daily lives, we will not be able to hear His guiding voice when the situation arises to defend our Faith. Many of the saints wrote about the importance of silence in hearing God’s voice, and this reminder is especially timely in the age of technology. We are constantly surrounded by noise and distractions, all of which prevent us from hearing God’s “still small voice” (1Kg 19:12 RSVCE) within our hearts. St. Francis de Sales famously said, “Every one of us needs half an hour of prayer a day, except when we are busy—then we need an hour.” This is because we especially need God's grace to guide and sustain us when we are weighed down by the cares and worries of life.
It is easy for us to enter into the spiritual life with enthusiasm and to eagerly begin a rigorous regimen, only to become discouraged when we find our enthusiasm and perseverance waning after just a short time. For this reason, St. Francis de Sales instructed each person to begin cultivating a life of prayer slowly, like a toddler taking his first steps. Just as a child does not run a marathon on the first day that he walks, so too we should not take upon ourselves too many new prayers and devotions at once, but rather grow our spiritual lives slowly in order to form lasting habits.
St. Francis de Sales emphasized the importance of always placing ourselves in the presence of God before we pray. This helps us to separate ourselves from the noise and distractions that fill our hearts, allowing us to focus on God. Distractions may still enter our minds during prayer, but St. Francis de Sales wrote that the more we practice placing ourselves in the presence of God, the easier it will become to hear God’s voice. In this way, we can slowly but surely advance in the spiritual life and become more attuned to the voice of the Holy Spirit, Who will give us the words to say whenever we need to explain or defend the Faith.
Listening to God's Voice
It is amazing to me how praying the Rosary opens me up to "The voice of The Holy Spirit." I often have ideas and insights that I can barely remember when I am done praying. But yesterday, one idea stuck with me. I was contemplating how God makes extraordinary demands on his people. I had been reading Exodus wherein the sacrifices God expects are described in detail, and I was thinking "Man, that's harsh, expecting these poor people to give their first and their best to God, always. But then, while meditating upon The Agony in the Garden, it dawned on me about the staggering nature of God's sacrifice for us. His first and only Son, on a Cross, so that we might not die, but have eternal life, in eternal communion with The Trinity and with all the angels and saints. It dawned on me that God perpetually invites us into an ongoing cycle of mutual self giving, where we pour out everything we have for God, and yet he pours out far more than that for us. Even the material sacrifices God asks for us are nothing more than a portion of time or matter that ultimately belongs to God, and not to ourselves. What took place on The Cross, with Mary at the foot of The Cross, is the culmination of the Greatest conspiracy of self giving love ever recorded, or contemplated. I'm not sure how profound this is, but it struck me as a realization that I could not have generated on my own from my limited knowledge of Scripture or of The Faith. Praying the Rosary, in my case, is an open invitation to The Holy Spirit to illuminate my heart and mind with His Truth.
This is most helpful! Thank you!!!