Listen to Him

Grace: To be still and listen for His voice
Scriptures: Ps. 6; 1 Kgs 19: 11-14; Rm 13:11-14; Ez 34: 11-16

"We think that in prayer we speak to God, and we are not wrong to think so. But the heart of prayer is that God speaks to us. It is not God whose mind is changed by our prayer, but we ourselves, if we would but cease to speak, and would instead wait upon God, and listen to him. It is the prayer of silent expectation, whereby we who love God wait upon him...

...Augustine himself had experience of this. All of his intellectual searching and labor had brought him finally to the truth about God and creation, but he still was caught in sin's shackles, and could not make what he saw in his mind to be the rule for his heart. He wept in frustration and despair, when all at once a voice as of a child came to him, calling out Tolle, lege, 'Take and read.' Then he took up the letters of St. Paul, that had been lying on the table nearby, and opened them, and read the verse (Rm 13: 13-14) that changed his life for ever, not because he had thought it through and determined to follow it, but because God had at one blow knocked the shackles off him and set him free.

So God wishes to do for us all. The moment may be soon. Be still. Wait. Listen."

--taken from Prayer, as Dazzling as the Sun, by Anthony Esolen (in Magnificat, p. 10-12)

"'I have heard your prayer and seen your tears. I will heal you.' (2 Kgs 20:5) The Lord gathers up the tears of humanity and transforms them into the waters of life by the alchemy of the cross, where suffering and death are changed into joy and life by the self-gift of love." -- from Magnificat, p. 85