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Petersboat
A Small Voice Still | The Monday After
00:13:40
If the Word of God is spoken most powerfully from mother to child over the Baptismal Font, or through the priest over the bread and wine, then the Church speaks the tiny whispering sound that Elijah heard in the desert - the still, small voice of God.
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So we had the camp here this past week, all these children, and you know, we might ask a question. Do we tell the children to desire God? Do we get them all together in the church, these hundreds of kids, and say, you know, you have to want God, you have to seek God. Or do they not already desire him? Has not God already put into their hearts the desire for him? So why have a camp? Why bring them together all week long and sing with them and pray with them and teach them and then be quiet with them before the Eucharist? Well, to help them to know how to find God, how to find this God who likes to play hide and seek. And then of course, to come before the Eucharist to show them that this is a God who likes to hide his presence in the Eucharist so as to be found by us. He is simple in that way. I joked around at the 10 o' clock mass, saying, sometimes I think this is why God made the dinosaurs. I think he knew that we would enjoy finding them. I think he is very simple like that. You stand before him at the end of life and say, why the dinosaurs? And then he imagined him smiling gently and saying, didn't you like them? Yeah, they were amazing. But was that it? You created them just for us to enjoy finding them? And maybe he just says nothing at all, but just smiles, you know, wow, what an amazing God. So, so good as to be so simple like that, you know, you know, such a pure, pure horse. I pray for the grace to be that way about my life too. Every day I wake up to say, I long for you, God, and I live in a distracting world. My heart was made for you and it will rest only in you. I will try to find a million ways today to distract myself from you. But Lord, don't let me go astray. And if I do, please seek me out and find me. Send your son Jesus to look for me. And then, Lord Jesus, when you find me, give me the grace to allow you to lead me back to the Father, you know? So I say it that way because coming back to you now and looking at the readings for this past weekend, we hear about Elijah, the prophet from the Old Testament, who was called into the desert to encounter God. And we hear that there's a strong, heavy wind, but that God is not in that strong, heavy wind which was rending the mountains and crushing rocks. And then we hear about the earthquake, but that the Lord is not in the earthquake. And then the fire, but that the Lord is not in the fire. Then there is A tiny whispering sound or a still, small voice. And Elijah covers his face, for it is the Lord. And then the Church gave us the gospel of the disciples in the boat, where the winds and whipping up the waves and their. The rocking and the reeling of the boat is frightening the disciples in this storm and the tumult. And then Jesus gently, quietly walks toward them on the water. You know, this still, small voice come to me. He says, it is, I do not be afraid. Then the Church gave us this second reading, and it's a little more mysterious as to why. But we said when we hear St. Paul writing to the Romans that his. His heart experiences constant anguish for his fellow Israelites. Remember, he was Jewish. We would ask, well, why would the Church give us this reading today when it's speaking about how God comes to us in the silence or he comes to us in the still, small voice, or the peace in the storm? You know, why would we hear then about St. Paul, who says, I've got constant anguish in my heart for my fellow Israelites because he's saying that so much has been given to them by the Lord. But when he came to them in the flesh in meekness and humility, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, they didn't recognize it. They didn't recognize that they couldn't see. They couldn't find God in Jesus of Nazareth. And I was thinking about, you know, the way that we live. And we said this at Mass. It's like we have so many things in our lives that are not God now. They're not bad things. This isn't a moral judgment. But there is so much in our lives that is created by man, so much that is invented. And it's hard to hear God in the noise of the culture that we've created for ourselves, you know. So then we spoke obviously about trying to permit some silence in our lives to find this God who wants to be found, who seemingly likes to play hide and seek because he likes to be found. We said that the children like to play hide and seek because they like to be found. Even when they say, you can't find me, like they'll stick their little elbow out or something that you can. I mentioned that my parents have a dog that has, for the last few months now, been hiding under everything. So she hides under the bed, she hides under the couch, but she always leaves her tail out. You know, she's got this long, beautiful tail. She always leaves this tail out, always. So that, you know she's under there. Yes, she's hiding, but she wants you to know she is, so that you always know where she is. I think God is similar even in the Eucharist. We hold this Eucharist up for all to see. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And yet Jesus is hiding in the Eucharist, but He knows that we find him there. And he loves to be found even as he hides. Remember that although we use the expression a lot, that, you know, I'm looking for God. I'm searching for God. Are you looking for God? You know, God's not lost. It is we who go astray. We get distracted from the search. One of my favorite authors is Walker Percy, just because of that book called the Moviegoer. I mean, if you read it, you'll hear or meet a man who's all about the search and who only wants to be with people who are searching. But then, after the five o' clock Mass, I recognize that while I did say we should promote some silence in our lives, I gave the impression perhaps that silence means no sound. So at the 8 and then again at the 10, I took care to say, well, as Catholic Christians, by silence we mean to live such a life where we promote a dialogue in our heart with Christ. I like certain music from, say, Radiohead, for example, where I don't really know exactly what Thom York is singing about. I just hear the way that he is. And listening to the song helps me to think about what the Lord is calling me to ponder even as I'm listening to the music. Certain movies, certain films, I don't know. For some reason, listening to them, even having them on the background, sometimes helps me to hear the Lord. So it's not about just not watching things that are, you know, vulgar, or only watching movies about saints, or only listening to praise and worship music or classical music. But whatever we're listening to, let it be something that promotes a dialogue with God in our heart. The silence of the Christian is a solitude with Christ. So isn't it interesting that when we would say, I'm going to use these words intentionally, I feel the presence of God in my heart. It's a voice. And although it's a voice, it's not that you hear what's called a locution sometimes, formally, where you hear him say your name and speak to you the way that I'm speaking to you now. No, I don't hear God like that, but it is a voice. And in some mysterious way, the Holy Spirit enables me to interpret that voice. See how God is all around us all the time. But it is we who go astray and are distracted so often. Remember Mother Teresa? We were working with the poor. And the news reporter would say, where is God when all these people are suffering? But she would say, God is right there suffering with these people. She says the real question is, where are you? Well, so, too, we live in a culture that questions whether God exists all the time. And God is always right here with us and even in our hearts. The real question is, you know, where are we? So I like to. And this is what I learned during the month of July, when I was called by the Lord to do the most difficult thing for me to do, which is to rest. Much better at being busy than being still. I'm much better at getting ready than being ready. But I realized during this month of July that I sometimes preoccupy myself and preoccupy my thoughts so that I might distract myself from what he might say to me. But I can't really run away from Him. So I run away from hearing him. I can't really escape from his presence, as the psalms say, you know, but I can distract myself from his presence, you know, this is, I think, why some people, ultimately, like your David Foster Wallaces of the world, are led to despair of life. Because they are surrounded by the mystery always, but find it exhausting to give themselves to it. This is where we say, come, Lord Jesus, because I know that the Father has sent you to help me to be unafraid of him, that the Father has sent you to help me to know how to find Him. And when I'm with you, Lord Jesus, I can pray to the Father, Thy will be done. Thy kingdom come, you know, at the Savior's command, informed by divine teaching, we dare to say, thy will be done, Thy kingdom come. But we're only able to dare to pray the Lord's Prayer because of the presence of the Lord. But if I were to be a person who's seeking God without the. The presence of Christ, it could be such a daunting task that I might give up on it altogether. For it is impossible without Christ. No one comes to the Father except through Him. But it could also be just so terrifying. So he's always all around us, perhaps not in the way that we expect to give Himself to us. On the night before he died in such a gentle, familial way, to give Himself to us in the bread and the wine. This is my body given up for you, My blood poured out to whisper these words of consecration. A tiny whispering sound. The still, small voice of Jesus of Nazareth whispering over the bread and the wine to the point where the disciples have to lean in to hear what he's even saying. And then they recognize that he's saying, this is my body given up for you. This is my blood poured out for you for the forgiveness of sins and the strength that comes into the world through your being willing to forgive those who sin against you. That strength, you know, God's strength. You know the baptisms, the mass this weekend at the 10 o', clock, the little girl was smiling so, so sincerely, you know, even in her infancy, sincerely smiling. And I thought as we baptized her and the little boy with her, these children already desire God. He put that desire in their heart and now he bring them to the font so that Christ himself could be poured into their soul to help them to find the fulfillment of their heart's desire. And the parents are there making a little sign of the cross on the foreheads of their children to say, and this is the way. This is the way. This is the way. His name is Jesus and this is his church. His name is Jesus, and this is his church. They'll say it over and over again to that child until that child grows to say it to his or her own child. Yeah. Baptism has only ever been handed on from one loved one to another. And the only reason that parent holds it out to their child, the faith, is because they realize that the faith has helped them to find God. The Catholic Church, as large as it is and as influential as its offices are, you know, as an institution, it is still just a tiny whispering sound in the culture, wouldn't you say?