Has God spoken to you lately? No, really--stop for a minute, and think about it. Has God spoken to you lately? What did God say? For a lot of us, the idea that God would speak to us might seem far-fetched. Maybe it seems like God stopped speaking a long time ago, around the time the Bible was finished. Or maybe it seems like God does still speak to people, but only to saints and visionaries and popes. Or maybe it seems theoretically possible that God is speaking to you personally, but you have no idea how you would know what God is saying. But what if we entertain the far-fetched notion for a moment: what if God really does speak to us all the time, in ways that we can actually understand, if we really want to? 

After all, we believe that God created us and loves us and wants to be in relationship with us. What kind of God would create us and love us and want to be in relationship with us, but never speak to us? We believe that God is deeply interested in each of us, in our hopes and fears and dreams. How could God possibly not want to speak to us about those things? So if we haven’t heard God speaking to us lately, maybe it’s not because God hasn’t been speaking, but because we haven’t been listening. 

One of the things that can get in the way of hearing God is that we get stuck on thinking that if God were to speak to us, it would have to be in some highly dramatic biblical fashion, like a thundering voice from a cloud. This can be a big roadblock--if we’re looking for a voice from a cloud, we’re probably going to miss the ways that God is really speaking to us. God can speak to us through our emotional responses to events and experiences in our lives, through his Word, through the words that people in our lives say to us, through creation, through the sacraments, through the Church, through art and music and literature. God speaks to us all the time in a thousand ways that we can understand, if we really want to. A huge part of listening to God is just paying attention.

But it’s also true that sometimes, we don’t listen to God because we don’t really want to hear what God is saying. We’re afraid that we’ll have to change in some way that we’re not really open to, or that God might ask us to do something we’re not prepared to do. So we avoid hearing the word that God is speaking to us by not bothering to pay attention. Maybe deep down we have a gut feeling that we know what God is saying to us through our experiences or through another person, and it’s something we really don’t want to hear. Or maybe we have already decided what we want God to say to us, and we’re only willing to listen if God says the words that we’re trying to put in his mouth. So we resist and rebel, doing the spiritual equivalent of sticking our fingers in our ears and saying, “I can’t hear you!” 

For me, there was a time in my life when I was very intentionally trying to discern God’s will for me. I wanted God to tell me specifically what kind of work he wanted me to do, so I was spending a lot of time asking, “What do you want me to do, Lord?”, and a lot of time hearing nothing in response. The possibilities that I thought might be God’s will for me didn’t work out, and over the course of several months, I became increasingly frustrated and resentful: here I was wanting to know God’s will so I could live it out, and he wouldn’t even tell me what it was. I kept hammering away and hammering away, until eventually in prayer it occurred to me that maybe “What do you want me to do, Lord?” was not the question God wanted to answer for me right then. It was what I was interested in talking to God about, but maybe it was not what God wanted to talk to me about. So I began to try to listen to God not for an answer to my questions, but for whatever God was trying to say to me. And slowly I began to hear God say, “You don’t need to worry about that right now. Just serve where you are. You don’t need to figure out some grand plan. Just serve the people I put in front of you every day.” I started to hear God saying “Just serve,” in a very strong and comforting way, all the time. In hearing that message and trying to follow it, I felt a sense of peace that I hadn’t known I needed. As it turns out, God has a much better sense of what I need to hear than I do. But I have to keep relearning this lesson over and over again.

~Rachel

Take your next step: The Examen is a way of praying developed by St. Ignatius that helps us to grow in our ability to recognize and hear God’s voice. It takes about 10-15 minutes a day. Try praying the Examen every day for a week as a way to become more open to hearing God speak to you.

This is a great question this week in light of Pope Francis’s encyclical (a document or letter intended for a wide circulation to teach or guide), which you may have heard about. It’s called Laudato Si, which is Italian for “Praise to You.” That’s a quote from Saint Francis’s thirteenth-century Canticle of the Sun, which offers praise to God for creation, and it’s an appropriate title for a teaching about the environment. Without getting into the encyclical, it’s enough to say that the pope is calling for “swift and united global action” to care for our planet. As one might expect from a spiritual leader, Pope Francis expects us to examine the choices we make that affect our environment, as well as our attitude about our relationships with our fellow humans, including future generations. I believe most people have very good intentions about all of this, and yet, as the pope says, “the Earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth.” Yikes! It seems the pope is trying to provoke us to ask ourselves what God expects of us, which might also prompt us to ask what we expect of God and what we think we deserve from God.

The readings for this coming weekend also invite us to reflect on these questions. The passage from the Gospel of Mark presents two stories, one sandwiched within the other. The author wants us to be aware that the stories are related and that the whole lesson includes both stories. An important man in the community, a synagogue official, has a 12-year-old daughter who is “at the point of death.” As an equal on the social scale, he is free to approach Jesus. He falls at his feet, as a gesture of homage and petition. According to the social code, Jesus would be obligated to help him. That society taught that men of equal status are obligated to do what they can for each other. Even though Jesus’s last reported visit to the synagogue, when he healed on a Sabbath, had resulted in a plot to kill him, this official had faith that Jesus could heal his daughter, and he believed that he deserved this favor from Jesus.

In the middle of this action, an unimportant, nameless woman, who has lost everything, including her social status, due to a 12-year illness, makes the decision to sneak up in the crowd to touch Jesus. She too has faith that Jesus can heal her, but believes she does not deserve to approach Jesus directly to ask for help. Although she probably knows the religious and social ethics that make her an outcast, she also knows the rich wisdom tradition of her faith. She is convinced that the suffering she has endured is not God’s will. What she has heard about Jesus makes her suspect he would agree. She is healed when she touches Jesus, but curing her illness is not enough for Jesus. She deserves more. He seeks her out for a personal encounter so that she can be fully restored to community life.

By this time, after the interruption, the report comes that the official’s daughter has died; it’s too late for Jesus to do anything. The official, who sought the encounter with Jesus, is challenged to take his next step in his faith journey. He didn’t get what he thought he deserved, but Jesus believes he deserves more. His choice to seek help from Jesus will lead him to a deeper experience of God’s love, goodness, and healing power than he thought was possible.

~Fr. Thom

Take your next step: Take some time to reflect on the following questions through journaling or quiet prayer: What choices have you made to seek God’s help in your life? What do you believe you deserve from God? What does God want from you?

Each of us, at one or another point in our life, experiences some challenge or tumult that puts a strain on our faith. Just look at the gospel reading for Sunday: even the disciples who walked in the physical presence of Jesus, who talked with him and questioned him and dared to hope in him as the Messiah, even they questioned, feared, and became uncertain when the sea became violent. In our own lives, the initiating event for fear to surface might be an illness of a child, concern about the loss of a job, watching your spouse become less mentally engaged and less able to figure out solutions to routine problems, or seeing a relationship with a trusted friend disintegrate. These triggers, problems in their own right, can also prompt feelings of isolation and abandonment by God. The question is: “What do we do?”

We can give credence to the feelings of aloneness and helplessness and give up, or we can stake a claim on the promise of God that God will be with us always to the end of time (Mt. 28:20). Focusing on the former choice leads to a dead end and a faltering relationship with Christ. Choosing the latter, investing in faith in God’s promises to us, leads us to peace, wholeness, and a deepening relationship with Christ. Even though there was more than a hint of frustration on Jesus’s part when he asks the disciples, “Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?”, there is also an incredible and very important manifestation of honesty in relationship and trust in Jesus’s willingness to hear their concern when they ask: “Do you not care that we are perishing?”

The development of relationships, any relationship, is marked and shaped by a series of ups and downs, and this is no less true of our relationship with Christ. We delight in the positive events and work our way through the difficult times. The tenacity to stick with it is what enables the relationship not just to survive; but also to thrive, to grow and to deepen. The disciples’ ability to express their consternation gave Jesus the opportunity to assert his power over the storm and, more importantly, to exert influence on the apostles’ faith. We all have the choice to let our fears fester or to rely on the power and compassion of God to embrace us and free us from our fears. Each time we place ourselves in the care of God, in spite of any doubts or concerns we might have, our life in Christ gets stronger. Challenges will continue to come our way, and each time that we choose to trust that God is with us, our relationship with God will deepen.

In the gospel story, Jesus gives no verbal answer to the disciples’ query: “Do you not care?” The answer is in what Jesus does when he stills the turbulent waters and brings about calm. He does care and will continue to show that care when we invest in a trusting relationship with him. Having faith in God is a lifelong process, one that makes our journey through life richer, more peaceful, and more centered. So will you go it alone, or will you walk in the company of Christ?

~Sr. Kathleen

Take your next step:  As a means to create a readiness to trust in God’s goodness, for one week, try praying the following each morning upon waking: “Loving God, be with me throughout this day, leading and guiding me each step I take.” During the day, when you find yourself fearful, ask God: “Release me from the fear and anxiety that threaten to overwhelm me.” And each night, pray: “Thank you for being at my side all the day long.”

This week's "take your next step" post is a very brief video (under 2 minutes). Click below to view the video!