Whoever is not with me is against me, and
whoever does not gather with me scatters. (Matthew 12:30) For whoever does the will of my heavenly
Father is my brother, and sister, and mother. (Matthew 12:50)
Last week we looked at our thoughts, and why
we need to put a guard on them. This
week we need to focus on listening. How
can we know the “will” of the Father?
How can we know we “gather” with Jesus?
We can know if we listen. We have
become disconnected from the present. We
have become preoccupied with ourselves and disconnected from one another, and
from God. How can we be prayerful or
pursue anything resembling spirituality if we are so over-booked we have no
time for the reality of the present moment.
Genuine
listening requires the virtue of patience and the ability to slow down the rush
of our thoughts so we can give full attention to the Other. Giving full attention is a form or love, a
source of happiness, a type of prayer.
It requires what Jesus emphasized in the first beatitude: poverty of
spirit. “Blessed are the poor in spirit”
reveals that emptying ourselves of ego by putting our own needs aside is the
essence of love.
We listen best to those we know,
and we get to know them by listening to them.
So, if we want to understand His “will,” then we will listen to Him as
we pray. Jesus responded to a question
about why he spoke in parables by saying many people “look but do not see and
hear but do not listen or understand.”
More than once Jesus said, “Whoever has ears to hear ought to
hear.” Just as we listen to our friends,
and don’t try to manage the conversation to support our ego, we should listen
as God speaks to us. We hear the voice
of God that comes as a wordless invitation to be in his presence. Jesus said, “When you pray, go to your inner
room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret.”
This Lent, let us spend more time in prayer,
more time in church. Let us really
listen to what Jesus is saying to us personally. Let us let the “giving up” we do, be the
giving up of our self-importance and give ourselves to God’s will, as we
listen. kvs
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