😎🐫🎤 Christ’s peace and presence be with you. Lately, I must be lacking when it comes to listening, because the subject of listening keeps finding its way to me. Henri Nouwen was a Dutch Catholic priest, professor, writer and theologian. From Wayne Muller’s book Sabbath, we read, “Henri Nouwen was a dear friend of mine, a brother, priest, and mentor. He was also a fiercely astute observer of our worried, overfilled lives. Henri insisted that the noise of our lives made us deaf, unable to hear when we are called, or from which direction. Henri said our lives have become absurd – because in the word absurd, we find the Latin word surdus, which means deaf. In our spiritual life we need to listen to the God who constantly speaks but whom we seldom hear in our hurried deafness. On the other hand, Henri was fond of reminding me that our word obedient comes from the Latin word audire, which means “to listen.” Henri believed that a spiritual life was a pilgrimage from absurdity to obedience – from deafness to listening.”
On Monday, I started attending the St. Augustine Institute 16 week program, Symbolon at one of our local parishes. The first session was titled, “Seeking the Face of God.” Whether conscious or unconscious, our deepest desire is to know God, our creator. He is constantly seeking us, which is why we constantly feel the aching to fill that God size void in our lives. When we are obedient (listen to) His word, we ourselves can in turn seek God and our seeking will turn into seeing.
During a break at the Symbolon session, a lady I spoke with shared a bit of her conversion story with me. As a child she didn’t have any kind of faith formation. Her only exposure to faith and religion was a grade school friend. As a young adult she was in an accident and during her recovery she found herself asking questions and seeking God. She had never been to a Catholic Mass before, yet one Saturday afternoon, she found herself walking to Mass. She sat in the back and had no idea what was really going on. God moved so deeply in her at that Mass, that she found herself returning to Mass not only every weekend, but also to daily Mass. She started asking questions to people at Mass and contacting the parish to see about taking faith formation classes to become Catholic. That is the power of seeking and listening to God.
Bless others and be blessed.
Shelly :0)
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#WayneMuller – Sabbath
#AugustineInstitute – Symbolon
#ZachWillimas – Lookin’ for You
Third Day Devotions 