Are You Listening

Friday’s mass struck me.  It began with the opening hymn words:

“Here I am, Lord, is it I Lord? 
I have heard You calling in the night …”

The first reading was Acts9:1-20, where Saul is going to Damascus to arrest Christians, until he was struck to the ground and blinded, and he spoke to the bright light before him: “Who are you, sir?”  Needless to say, like the opening hymn, Saul heard the Lord calling --- but in a way that he could not rationalize away.  This was real.  This was God, calling to him. 

Perhaps we need stop here and ask, very seriously ask, of ourselves:  Do I need to be struck blind to listen to God?  No, even that perspective is worded wrong; we need to stop always asking ourselves what to do but ask God.

The Gospel reading at mass was from John6:52-59, where Jesus says: “whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”  There was a substitute priest at mass, and as he spoke his sermon, he said: “It gives me great consolation that at 88, I became who Jesus wanted me to be.  I often act as a marriage counselor, and I tell couples no one is perfect, but Jesus in our life can transform us.  My prayer is to help me read the signs you have given me.”  Prayer came first for him, before counseling anyone.

And, as we received the Eucharist, His Flesh and Blood, the choir sang: “Open my eyes, Lord, help me to see your face.  Open my ears, Lord, help me to hear your word.”

A Bible study group I participate in is considering a change in focus or format, and we’re praying about it.  Last week we listened to Fr. John Riccardo’s interview on the Lila Rose show about 2 months ago, when he spoke about “how to hear God’s word in your life.”  And I recently received copies of Bishop Robert Barron’s new book: What do their Lives Demand, about Christian persecution today.  Both Fr Riccardo and Bishop Barron said: Start with prayer and then listen.

All these events seem to be saying the same thing: Are you listening?

I spent most of my early years “doing what is right”, as I believed it to be.  I cared for my neighbor as commanded --- if it weren’t too inconvenient.  But in living those years well, I did not often ask, sincerely: What is Your will, Lord?  If those were good years, oh, oh, how much smore wonderful they could have been.

There was a young woman once, who also did what she knew was right and commanded by God.  Her whole life was planned out before her.  All would be as she wanted --- and then:

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed:
the Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.
He has mercy on those who fear him 
in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm,
he has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel
for he has remembered his promise of mercy,
the promise he made to our fathers,
to Abraham and his children forever.

 --- The Magnificat

 

 

Is This The End?

 

I’ve had a number of people tell me that they felt that these might be the end days.  My usual response is that “I thought only the Father knew the day and the hour.”  And, privately, I thought of all the suffering people I know.  There does seem to be no solution, at least no satisfying one, and no end to the suffering in the world.  We can’t fix our lives, and we are not as happy as we once were, and pray to be again.  So, we can’t imagine any solution, but God’s bringing about the end.

I’m reminded of the story of the starfish on the beach.  Thousands of them washed onto the sand, and a little boy was tossing some back into the sea.  A nearby man said: “What are you doing that for?  You can’t make any difference with all these dying fish.”  And the boy picked up another starfish and tossed into the waves.  “I made a difference for that one,” he said.

Jesus came into a world that had forgotten God.  His followers were tortured and killed --- and still are today --- for trying to save one soul.  And the world changed, one soul at a time, but it was not without witness; it was not without suffering.  Is this the end?  Perhaps if the Father wills it, but we are here to save souls, one at a time, and perhaps most foremost, our own.

Suffering, trust, love in action.  It’s the history of Christianity, the heart of Christ, ongoing to the end, and beyond.

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The men’s group have started reading the book titled: Eucharist, by Bishop Robert Barron.  His introductory chapter includes the story told in the movie Babette’s Feast.  I greatly liked that particular movie and, if I had ever known, I had forgotten that it was a parable of the Eucharist.  It is a simple story of a great woman who gave up her greatness to live among, befriend, and serve the poor, and then at the end showed her greatness for all to see in her final action, in an amazing meal, in which she gave her all for them.  It is a great introduction to Bishop Barron’s book.  It has me hungering for more.

Life is Not a Game

 A few weeks ago, I stumbled across a computer game titled Bubble Shooter.  Skipping more mentally challenging games (which I sometimes visit to exercise my pea-brain), I turned on this simplistic, rote-played, bubble game.  In the game, the top of the screen has an array of connected bubbles, each one of 4 colors, and the bottom has a single-colored bubble which you aim, to hit a similar colored bubble above.  It’s pretty much a simple game for children, until --- I noticed some patterns and ways you could hit more bubbles, until your limited number of shooter bubbles runs out.  And then, I further noticed that you could begin to analyze sequences of the differing colors of the shooter bubbles, and plan even further ahead based on likely outcomes.  And, while it now becomes a more thinking, strategic game, you can’t let yourself ignore the game basics: you are aiming one bubble to hit another, and if you don’t focus enough on the simple act of aiming, you miss, and waste one of the limited number of shots available during the game.

I’ve come to realize that the bubble game could be simply played by a very young child, or strategically played by a sharp-minded adult.  And then it happened today:  I suddenly saw the relationship of how this game is played, to how we live our lives: very simplistic, follow-the-rules, follow others, or ---- having a keen focus on the end goal, and realizing that the limited time we have and how we play the game will affect the final outcome.  And in life, that final outcome is heaven or hell.

            I’ve had some wonderful conversations with friends in recent days and weeks.  We’ve noticed the workings of the Holy Spirit in the world, in the lives of others, and as we better focus on prayer, hearing Him in our own lives also.  The word “joy” comes to mind today; it’s the best word I can use to describe the feeling you get when you see God in action all around you.

In a recent podcast, Fr. John Riccardo (now of ACTS XXIX) told how Jesus recently spoke to him, telling him how his life is NOT a game (as I just described) but a story, the story of the world, a sometimes-scary story in which he has a role. But Jesus told John to relax, and just do his part.  “I wrote the story; you know it has a happy ending.  Trust me.”

There is one key point to note here:  The story God wrote has God as the author; He is in control of the outcome.  If I choose to live my life as a game, I act as if I am in control of the outcome.  The unifying factor between what I try to do and what God created me to do is grace.  Through the grace of God (and His mercy), I can better see the life-path intended for me, my part of the story, and then choose to live it.  Grace moves me from the realm of sensual choices --- what “feels good” as in a game, to spiritual choices, what IS good for me, even if it sometimes doesn’t feel so good.

Yes, we were created in the story of God’s creation as free being; we can choose how to live our lives.  We can play life as a simple game, follow the basic rules, and just enjoy ourselves.  But there is a bigger story than just our lives, and we are part of that bigger story.  We were written into it --- we have a role to play, a purpose in the bigger story of creation, to help bring it to a happy ending, for all involved, and most especially a happy ending for the Creator of the story.

If we don’t do something good with our lives, we’ll just be written out of the final story, and not be part of the happy ending.  We’ll miss out on the final grand celebration, where everyone “lives happily ever after”.  God wrote the book of creation, but we can choose to be part of the happy ending with everyone, or we can choose to live our life as a game, content to do simple little things as we want, alone.

Life, REAL life, is not a game, and was not given to be played alone.  Life was created to be lived in community, family, interaction with God and others, where we choose with grace (through our focus and actions) to love God and our neighbor.  We know how to live life as it should be lived; He came and lived the lead role in His Book to show us how we should play our part.  And if we should be proud of anything, it is that He created us in His image. We shouldn’t worry that life is hard; we were made for this story.  Just study the role the Creator, Jesus, played in it; He’s leading the way, as a Good Shepherd, and “you know the story has a happy ending”.