Can you hear the songs of praise? Nature displays her beauty and God is glorified. . . riotious colours, lovely scents . . . these are some of the messages I get each time I walk past. I just love them. . . sometimes you see a lizard and its small bright eyes just look at you. Or you could meet a little honey bee flying from one sweet smelling flower to another. How grateful I am for eyes to see, ears to hear and a nose to smell. . .. God is whispering. Can you hear him?
Over the past few days I read several good quotations on the need for one to be silent, and also the fact that silence is good for the soul. Yes, I was at a retreat centre. One quotation I saw asked:
‘God is whispering. Can you hear him?’
It would appear as if God is just whispering, that he is soft and so many of us tend to miss his messages. But it is not really so. That morning I did indeed hear the reading at Mass loudly and clearly. In the book of the Prophet Isaiah, Chapter 55 reminded me of the power of God’s Word.
“The Word that goes from My mouth does return to Me empty, without carrying out My will and succeeding in what it was sent to do…”
What power there is and what joy it brings to one’s heart. Almost at once I thought of the sentence written in St Paul’s letter – ‘Your grace is sufficient for me’. Indeed, it is. And today, as I read Mark’s gospel, I came across the wonderful advice given…’Ask and you shall receive; seek and you shall find; knock and the door will be opened to you…’
What is stopping us? Our little faith? We are in Lent. It is a season of new beginnings. Let us journey on in new ways, deeper ways. May the Lord grant us clarity of vision to see His goodness and obedience of heart to believe that his word can save, that his word is active and alive and that, believing in his word, we can truly grow in our spiritual lives.
Just looking at the title, one will know that that is one of the challenges in our faith journey, and a very good one at that. Thank God, then, for the many who have walked before us and shown us how, with the grace of God, all things are possible. Most of all, we gaze with deep gratitude on our Lord Jesus, the Holy One of God who chose to live among us. Teach us, Lord!
It has been said that our Lord teaches us in many different ways. Like the Good Teacher that he is, he guides each of us as he knows best. Since we have all been created unique and since he has blessed us with different personalities, and we, in our human condition, remain where he has planted us, we can only struggle along. There are indeed many challenges and praise be to God, who is always in our midst, looking at us with such tender loving care.
Our Lord instructs those who are humble and willing to learn. He instructs the heart not by means of ideas, but by pains and contradictions. We on our part have to know that God is love and that all he allows to happen in our lives can only be for the good of each and every one of us. We may never understand the mystery of suffering, but we must learn to trust in his loving and divine providence. To allow us to be in pain for a time is also divine providence. Then, each of us may hear that gentle voice beckoning us to offer it up so as to be united with the One who first loved us. How good you are! Let us taste the goodness of our Lord!
This is where the grace for self denial comes in. We need to ask for it. We need to be able to stand aloof, so to speak, and say, God alone is enough. Sometimes this will take us to a time when we really have to give up something or someone who cannot be in our lives. These are the ‘cancers’ that no sensible person would detain. So what about us? How many of us cling to trivialities that will do us no good?
To achieve self-denial as a gift in this faith journey, we need to act tough. Think of the surgeon who cuts away what can only cause more harm to the body. Think of how the gardener prunes and makes a tree grow stronger. Necessarily so, and we have to constantly go through a long series of all kinds of mortifications, trials, and strippings.
When we can do this with the grace of God, we will find ourselves immersed more and more in love so pure, so deep, so genuine. When that time comes, we will know too that the First Principle and Foundation as St Ignatius has taught us will also be our rule. God alone is enough. God is everything. Anything that hinders us from getting closer to God becomes an obstacle to be got rid of at once, and may God give us strength to do so. He will, for he loves us too much, too deeply and always, unconditionally!
In yesterday’s midday prayer I was moved when I read these words –
“Come back to me, the Lord says, and there shall be no frown of mine awaiting you; I am merciful, and vengeance shall not last for ever. WANDERING HEARTS, THE LORD BIDS YOU COME BACK TO HIM.” (Cf Jeremiah 3: 12, 14a)
The letters which I have typed in bold stirred the very depths of my heart. As I read them in the privacy of my home, I was compelled to pray for the many who are still wandering, still lost in the frivolities of the world that does not have Christ…For whatever reasons. Don’t all of us know of at least some one who has a dire need to come back to the saving love of our Lord? How many remain out there like the prodigal son in St Luke’s Gospel, oblivious to the dangers and snares they have been lured into?
Yes, there are so many of our brothers and sisters wandering in the wilderness, quite unaware of the dangers they are in, dangers to their souls and to their bodies…And my spirit was moved to pray again, uniting my pleas to the many all over the world. And I thought of the programme that the Catholic Church has…LANDINGS.
Come back, wandering souls…the Church welcomes you.
Wandering hearts, the Lord loves you.
Come back to Him now. The Lord loves you.
Come back and have a clean start all over again.
His mercies are new every morning. His mercies never come to an end.
But don’t delay…Come back, wandering hearts.
And I thank God for one such wandering soul who came back, encouraged by the words of Prophet Isaiah in today’s morning prayer -
“Come now, let us talk this over, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.” (See Is 1: 16-18)
It makes one sit up and wonder: ‘Our Mother Angela was a Third Order Franciscan for some 40 years!’ I have made this observation and shared it with my friends in the Franciscan family, especially friends with whom I had journeyed for close to a year. Those were the days when I was seeking and I did not know that secular institutes like the Company of St Ursula existed. But, of course, our Lord in his goodness found me and urged me to make a silent retreat, and it was there that I met my consorella Helene. Praise God!
St Angela joined the Franciscan family and embraced the habit with joy. One of the reasons was that “it would be easier for her to go to mass, confession and communion” ( Agostino Gallo, 1568) For us, we are to make regular confessions and not just twice a year, before Easter and before Christmas. I recall someone saying to me that the Church required only one confession per year. I looked questioningly at my sister in Christ, unable to speak for some moments. Yes, but we are not without priests. If the Church should make it so, she is considering the situation of our brothers and sisters in places that have visits from a priest only once a year. Yes, we are in need of more priests. We are in need of vocations to the priesthood. For us who are so blessed with masses being celebrated so many times a day in so many parishes on a small island, heaven forbid that we should be content with confessing our sins only once a year!
Fr Antoine was just saying the other time that a person who did not bathe for even three months would really stink. He was also referring to confession and he was exhorting us to make regular confessions. By regular confession Fr Antoine was saying that we could go for weekly confessions or perhaps after ten days.
St Angela would smile at Fr Antoine’s teaching for they coincide with hers, and surely both have been inspired by the Holy Spirit. St Angela tells us that confession is “necessary medicine for the wounds of our souls. For no one will ever be justified from sin, if he does not first, with his [own] lips confess his faults to the priest…” (from the Rule)
“There is a time to speak and a time to listen. A child of God must know the difference”
Was there not a time in the past when one would hear the wise saying ‘Silence is Golden’? So often we are quick to open our mouths to say what we want, and for many of us, I dare say, when someone is talking, we are already formulating our answer, ready to blurt out what we may consider to be the right and best answer. How do I know? I plead guilty. It is a struggle for me to restrain myself and to constantly remind myself to l-i-s-t-e-n and to simply LISTEN.
How right our Lord is when he spoke to St Faustina, reminding her that the talkative soul drives the Holy Spirit away. If I may put it this way, the silent soul hears better the inspiration and promptings of the Holy Spirit. So He inspires St Paul to tell us that we are to be quick to listen but slow to speak.
This Lent, let me learn to be SILENT so the Lord may teach me better. I would not say that I am a talkative person for I would be the last to speak up or ask questions in any seminar or discussions. I would normally do only what I really need to do by saying what needs to be said. However, in this present article, I am thinking of the noise I make in my head and in my heart. Any other thoughts or ideas that come to interrupt someone’s conversation with me is noise. Any thoughts that come to distract while at prayer or sitting before the Blessed Sacrament is also noise. Such noise can be as bad as vocal sounds.
I remember how a priest talked to us about our mental dialogues. Indeed, if one is not vigilant, one could end up having some very serious arguments, trying to justify oneself, trying to make excuses for one’s mistakes, and generally just trying to avoid taking the blame. And so we come back to the wise saying: Silence is Golden.
Awareness. Mindfulness. If we keep this in mind, we will reduce the noise within and without and then we might do a little better. May God help us!
The Word of God is living and active. . . Today the sweetness of God’s Word came to me like a refreshing wind on a hot day. As I was preparing for Mass I read the first reading from the Book of Deuteronomy. Moses was speaking to the people…but God was speaking to me…and soon after that I felt compelled to share the Good News with some friends. Now, I share it with you who read this blog, that you too may be richly blessed. Here it is.
Deut 30: 19-20
“I set before you life or death, blessing or curse. Choose life, then, so that you and your descendants may live, in the love of the Lord your God, obeying his voice, clinging to him; for in this your life consists, and on this depends your long stay in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob he would give them.”
We are called to choose life and prosperity. In God alone is life. To Him we must cling. On Him we must depend. Him alone must we love and adore.
Such sweetness…Lord, thank you for these all powerful words acting so marvellously in my soul, causing me to raise my heart to you in prayer and adoration. Truly, as St Angela says, Christ is our Only Treasure.
Where can we go? To whom can we turn? You have the message of eternal life.
Welcome, companions on the journey. We begin our Lenten season with Ash Wednesday, and we do this as the Church in union with our Lord Jesus Christ and the whole company of saints in heaven. We celebrate and we rejoice for Christ is the same yesterday, today and always. He has come, he died, rose from the dead and will come again. To God be the glory!
We remember the sacrifice of Jesus our Saviour and how he has, in and through his crucifixion, resurrection and ascension, come to save us and given us a new life. Baptised and made anew, we can thank God again for the gift of eternal life.
We remember the infinitely deep love of our Saviour Jesus Christ and we know that we have indeed many reasons to celebrate this season of Lent, from Ash Wednesday to Easter. Yes, our Lord Jesus died for all peoples and so we count our blessings and rejoice that our God loves us all, unconditionally.
Three things call for our attention then:
1. We must seek a change of heart. We must grow more and more in holiness for without that, no one can see God. Let us desire to be more and more Christ-like. May the Lord grant us the grace to seek and to do all that will grant us conversion of heart and a desire for all that is pure, good, holy, perfect and noble. Let us “turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel”
2. We must seek to be reconciled with our God and with one another. May we earnestly and sincerely appreicate what God has done for us and in so doing, seek to forgive those who have hurt us. . . those who have made life difficult for us….In other words, we need to do all that the Gospel teaches us. He waits for us to be whole and we can do that when we first forgive and we are at peace not only with our Lord but with everyone.
3. We must seek to be truthful before God. Now is the day of salvation. This is the favourable time. God loves us and he is faithful. Whatever we may do – good or bad – God sees all and there is nothing we can hide from him. We have no need to pretend. All is clear before the One whose eyes are as powerful as ten thousand suns and sees everything. Perhaps some of us are street angels, making a display of ourselves, and at the same time, we are also home devils, terrorising our family members and causing all sorts of problems for others. Whatever it is, we cannot pretend, and our accountability is always called for.
So as we take the first step today on our Lenten journey, let us begin well so as to end with great rejoicing on Easter Sunday. Let us do all our praying, fasting and almsgiving with the right spirit for the greater glory of God. We are not to feel oppressed by guilt or sadness. Love alone must be our motivation.
Indeed, love alone must be what moves us to desire a change of heart for more purity, for reconciliation with our Lord and everyone, and for truthfulness in every aspect of our lives. God loves us and he has sent us Jesus. He puts no charge on his gift of salvation. It is pure gift. On our part, let us respond to his love and walk on with gratitude and faithfulness till we see him face to face. Amen
You can learn more in an hour of silence than you can in a year from books.
So says Matthew Kelly and he is right. I do agree. . . but so many of us spend time in noise polluted places. Our world is a very noisy world. I am not talking about sounds you cannot avoid . . . thunder and waves and other sounds from nature. I am talking about noises that we foolishly choose to create or desire to surround ourselves with. Are we afraid of silence? Do we not dare to keep silent and still for fear of hearing what we would rather not hear?
I was just thinking to myself some days ago. We are a generation of people doomed to suffer from hearing problems ahead of our time. I wonder if you have noticed that we seem to see a mushrooming of companies dealing with hearing aids? And hearing aids are not cheap at all! In time to come, we will be shouting more and more because we cannot hear each other. We are becoming deaf.
The silence from which we can learn begins with the physical aspect and so we seek out quiet places. We long for churches that are so silent, so peaceful that one’s breath becomes a reminder of the Real Presence of God who sustains us with every breath we take. It is not easy to find such quiet places for sadly, even our churches have become market places of sorts. How did we deteriorate to such a sad state of affairs? How can we bring back the silence, first the physical and then the inner silence of the heart?
In one convent I saw a poster that posed a gentle reminder: it said that to keep the silence is an act of love. That is true. May we do that each time we enter a church or a chapel… and may I add, an adoration chapel. It makes one shudder to have someone come in, pick up a cushion roughly and throw it down hard on the floor, making a loud statement as if to say ‘I have arrived. I am here’. Lord, have mercy on us!
I am amazed – is this the right word – when someone asks such a question “Why pray for priests?” The person then says more: “They should pray for us. They are holy. We are sinners.”
I stand amazed. I am still reflecting on what has taken place today. I was asked a couple of questions regarding the latest exercise spearheaded by Serrans International. (Please see an earlier post – Praying with the Serrans) I was asked if it was very much a sacrifice to have to offer one mass per week on a particular day specially set aside for the priest assigned. I do not think so as I go for mass daily. If I could, I would do nothing but attend masses. . . but this is another matter.
The next question: How difficult is it to have to include an extra decade of the rosary and a chaplet of Divine Mercy each day as well for the priest assigned? Well, members of Serra International in Singapore already know that some may find it too time-consuming and so they have clearly indicated that these prayers would take only about ten minutes. I was thinking how so many people fritter their time away on so many pursuits that may not be exactly meaningful, so why not take ten minutes out to pray for a priest?
Our priests bring Christ to us in the Liturgy of the Word, in the Sacraments especially the Eucharist and Reconciliation. They do much more besides. They have given their lives to God out of love for God and for us, God’s people.
Another point is that we are not the ones who do all the giving when we pray for our priests. They pray for us too. If we are Catholics, we know that we have the communion of saints, and so, to pray for both the dead and the living is more the norm than something to be surprised about. Still, we are all different and as we grow in our faith, the Lord teaches us continually. How receptive are we? That depends on the soil of our heart. . .
As for the point that priests are holy while we are sinners. . . and so they should pray for us. . .. I think I have to hold my peace and say nothing about this. In the eyes of the Most High God, we are His beloved children – prone to sin, in need of His mercy and certainly, as the body of Christ, we are all companions on the way. When one part of the body is hurting, every part hurts and when one part is well, we say ‘ Praise God!’ So, as one body of Christ, the Church follows where the Head of the Church goes. We follow Jesus, and He is still interceding for us at the right hand of the Father. Lord, teach us to pray!
