Fr Sean again:
Are You Listening to God Calling You?
Having entered this New Year it would be good for us to ask, “Am I listening to God calling me?” God, as the loving Father who provides for us, the Redeemer who died to save us, and the Holy Spirit who makes us holy, continuously calls each of His children to some service. Therefore, in the words of the psalm (40:2 -10), if we listen, you and I learn that “…the Lord is attentive to me. He heard my prayers and brought me out of the pit of misery and the mire of dregs … He directed my steps and He put a new song into my mouth, a hymn to our God… Blessed is the man whose trust is in the Name of the Lord; and who has no regard for vanities and lying follies …to do Your will, O God, is my delight, and Your law is within my heart! I announced Your justice in the vast assemblies; I do not restrain my lips as You, O Lord, know.” What God calls us to be and do He also gives us the wherewithal to accomplish.
The purpose of listening is to learn. God talks to us in our conscience, in Holy Scripture and His Church’s Tradition, but if we don’t listen we won’t learn and so remain dullards in our ignorance of what He calls us to be. The Holy Spirit urges us to, “Act on this Word. If all you do is hear it, you are deceiving yourselves. There is, on the other hand, the person who looks into freedom’s ideal law and abides by it. That person is no forgetful hearer, but one who carries out the law in practice. Blest will this person be in whatever he or she does” (Jas 1:22, 25). Ignorance and forgetfulness are the root of all evil, particularly regarding how much we need God, hear and listen to Him and follow His ways. Hearing and listening aren’t the same. They are two stages in the process of understanding. We must hear with a listening ear. Too often we hear without listening and so we receive only the content but not the intent. It’s the intent that’s most important. Content can be misunderstood but intent cannot. What we think we hear isn’t always what is intended. Listening requires presence, empathy, and reflection. This is how understanding comes about.
This Sunday the Church proclaims God’s call to Samuel (1 Sam 3:3-10, 19) to be His prophet, Jesus’ call to His first Apostles (Jn 3:35-42), and St. Paul’s call to focus on the purity of the body ( 1 Cor 6:13-20).
Samuel was awakened one night by a voice calling his name. He thought it was the prophet Eli. Eli advised Samuel it might be God and so to say, if he heard the voice again, “Speak Lord, for Your servant is listening.” This prayer prepared Samuel to hear and listen to what God wanted. Thus “Samuel grew up and the Lord was with him, not permitting any word of his to be without effect.” Listening leads to understanding what we’re being called to do.
Our daily prayer each day must be, “Speak Lord, Your servant is listening,” if we want to understand what God is telling us. We have to develop our ability to listen because we’re not automatically good listeners. We have to learn listening skills. Listening requires the following ingredients: be respectful toward and have faith in the speaker; empathize with the speaker, ask true questions to deepen our understanding, and give good feedback to make sure we’re grasping the speaker’s intent. These apply in every relationship including with God. In the absence of these qualities we’re not listening and so we miss the message and abort the communication.
Every sin signifies a refusal to listen to God. When we don’t listen we become “forgetful hearers.” Listening calls for an investment of oneself in the speaker. Merely hearing the person doesn’t. When I invest myself in a speaker I allow myself to be influenced and to learn from him or her. When God speaks to us and we listen we cannot help but be influenced by Him. We can hear Jesus, but because we don’t listen we’ll walk away and remain untouched. Where there’s no investment there’s no change.
Samuel listened and invested Himself in God. So did Andrew and Peter. The Holy Spirit empowered John the Baptizer to recognize Jesus with the words, “Behold, the Lamb of God.” These words have rung continuously down through the generations in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass at Holy Communion time. Having listened to John, Andrew asked Jesus where he lived. He replied, “Come and see!” Having listened to Jesus, Andrew was so influenced that he went and told his brother, Simon, “We have found the Messiah” and brought him to Jesus who named him “Cephas – Peter.”
What do we see here? Andrew listened to Jesus and invested himself in Him with the result that he felt compelled to share the experience with his brother. This is what happens when we listen to Jesus and invest ourselves in Him. We can’t keep the good news to ourselves. If we don’t listen we won’t let Jesus influence us and so we’ve no good news to share. Perhaps that’s why so many say, “I get nothing out of going to Church.” Jesus calls each of us to listen, invest ourselves in Him, and respond, “Here I am, Lord, I come to do Thy will” (Ps 40). Then Jesus invests in us and we’re able to proclaim with the Psalmist, “To do Your will, O God, is my delight, and Your law is written on my heart. I announced Your justice in the vast assembly; I didn’t restrain my lips, as You, O Lord, know.” Thus we have great news to share.
We invest ourselves in God’s call not just spiritually but also bodily. Therefore we must use our body in accord with His word. The Holy Spirit warns us through St. Paul to “avoid immorality/fornication” (1 Cor 6: 13-20). “The body is not for fornication, but for the Lord … You know that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I, then, take the members of Christ, and make them members of a prostitute? God forbid … He who is joined to a prostitute is made one body ... Flee from fornication. Every sin that a man commits is outside his body, but he that commits fornication, sins against his own body. Do you know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have from God; and you are not your own. You are bought with a great price, therefore glorify God in your body.”
God calls us to unite with Him as body-soul creatures. If we use our body selfishly we separate ourselves from God. We cannot be united with God spiritually without being united with Him bodily. We listen to God with our whole self – body and soul. If we use our body for immoral purposes we insult our Creator by investing in evil rather than in Him. None of us is immune to sɛҳuąƖ urges which can overpower us if we stop listening to God.
In the listening process our whole self must be involved if we’re to understand and be influenced by what we’re hearing. Therefore we must use our body in such a way that we give glory to God as our Creator and redeemer. Immorality or fornication, adultery, sex abuse, desecrate our body that became a temple of the Holy Spirit the day we were baptized. What we do with our body affects our soul and vice versa. So to fully listen to God, answer His call, and be transformed by Him we must be united with Him both in body and soul in order to receive His blessing and be a blessing to others. Our bodies aren’t our own to do what we want with them. We must use them to serve God and not our disordered desires. That means avoiding sins of the flesh that pollute the body and soul. Immorality impedes us from carrying out God’s call to live as His gifted children destined for eternal happiness. May we be willing listeners, in body and soul, to God’s daily call each day of our life. (fr sean)
Topic: Forgive So We Can Live and Let Live (Read 1771321 times)