A newly ordained priest was sent to work as an assistant to an older priest. The young priest went to the older priest for some orientation and advice. “How long should I preach?” The older man answered preach for about 10 minutes.
I have been surprised when I observe that people can attend a lengthy concert or movie for two or three hours. How come people can sit in one place for two or three hours or more and watch a good movie or listen with joy to choral music but they cannot do the same when it comes to listening to the word of God in Church?
I think I may have an answer after reading a book on listening. The book explores the question of why people do not hear the word of God. People need personal experiences to listen completely. People need to have a personal experience of God in their lives before they can hear the word of God.
To proclaim the word of God to people who do not know God in a personal way, and who do not have a personal relationship with God, is like reading poetry to people who do not know what poetry is all about. They get bored very easily and are in a hurry to leave.
How can people move from being bored by the word of God to a situation of enthusiasm in hearing the word of God? Jesus says “if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won over your brother.” You have made the listening a personal thing.
As we read in the psalm “Oh that today you would hear his voice: harden not your hearts as at Meribah, as in the day of Massah, in the desert.”
In my reading I found three steps necessary to transform from luke warmness to enthusiasm in the faith. The three steps are (1) go into the desert, (2) the word of God comes to us, and (3) leave the desert and go about loving your neighbor.
Stage 1- We go into the desert. This is a place of being alone with God. We go into the desert when we take time off our normal job and household responsibilities to be with God in church, in prayer, in reading the word of God. The desert is the place where we encounter God. We ourselves must take the first step to go into the desert, to reach out to God, to look for God.
Stage 2 – The word of God comes to us. Once we are open to God in the desert, God Himself comes and fills us up. A saint once said that when we take one step to God, God takes two steps to us. At this stage God takes the initiative to come to us, to fill us, to renew us, to transform us, to remold us into God’s image as we are created to be. This is the stage that some people call being born again. When this happens to us we would like to spend the whole day alone with God in church, in prayer, in Bible reading. But we must go on to live our lives and carry out our life in the family and in society.
Stage 3 – We go about loving our neighbor. Having experienced the goodness of the Lord in our own lives, our next desire is to share this experience with others. People look at us and see the joy and peace and serenity that radiates from us and they would like to be like us. They would like to be our friends. The experience of God is like the experience of love. You can tell people about it but they will not understand what you are talking about until they themselves experience it.
God our Father, you redeem us and make us your children in Christ. Look upon us, give us true freedom and bring us to the inheritance you promised. In order for this to happen, we must resolve, to take the first step, to make room for God, make time for church, for prayer, for hearing the word of God, for giving thanks for God in our life.
Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This month our contributor is Deacon Peter Mueller of St. John’s Catholic Church in Grand Marais.
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