God has blessed us in our Catholic tradition with many saints who have in their own ways helped us to enter more deeply into faith and into Christ. I have a deep appreciation for the contributions of St. Francis (Franciscan Spirituality) and St. Ignatius (Jesuit Spirituality). This week was the feast day for St. Benedict.
Benedict frames the spiritual life in the Prologue to his Rule of life in his first word: Listen. Or as he says later, listen with the ear of your heart. Listen… as to a loving father. Listen… to a call, an invitation. Listen… to a Word spoken, communicated, to bring us into communion with God, to be transformed in him. These first words of the Rule of St. Benedict characterize what is at the heart of Benedictine spirituality. A listening… to live in a prayerfulness, an attentiveness or receptiveness, to God’s voice, God’s presence, in our day. How God shows to each of us: I am with you…. How God calls us by name… and we respond, Here I am, Lord.
But somehow it becomes difficult to hear God’s voice, to notice God in our day, to be in God’s presence. We become busy or hurried. Or stressed. Or upset with how things are going. Or with other people. Our hearts lose that sense of God, and become weakened in the ability to know him. As Psalm 95 says, “Today, if you hear his voice, harden not your heart.” To hear God’s voice, calls us to open our hearts. How might we open our hearts more to God? How might we approach our day, or organize our life, to give God space? How might we remember to listen? What might we do to help our hearts remember what God is like? What his voice is like? This is what Benedict tries to do in giving guidance in his Rule of life.
Having moments of prayer in our day, early in the morning, a break in the day, or in the evening, or when we are going to sleep, or can’t sleep! To help us listen, Benedict calls us to prayer and to listen in Scripture. Praying the psalms helps us to orient our hearts to God, and to participate in the prayer of Christ, in Christ. Sometimes a line from a psalm, or scripture, can be a little prayer phrase that can be a way for us to return to being in God’s presence, to remember, to reconnect. Or even just calling on the name of Jesus and his mercy.
We listen in the today, where you are today. Here… I am. That each day we live in the presence of God, mindful of God, open to God, aware of God, with an open heart…. And surrendering our life to God, each day. God may show us his presence and love in moments of blessing… in moments of mercy… in moments of encounter or sharing with someone… We can even organize our life to intentionally give ourselves the care and the space we need to have an open heart… in how we sleep... and wake… how we eat… how we have quiet… reading… prayer… and the space we need to be open to others, for time with others in hospitality. All of these things can be sacred ways of living with an open heart. For God’s grace to work in us.
We listen in our daily work. As in our labor we care for others, even in the humblest of tasks - even to treat the tools and instruments we use in our labor or tasks as sacred in our hands - as if we were handling the chalice at the altar of our life. Every labor to care for someone can be a work of mercy, a sacred act. To seek not what is useful for myself, but for the benefit of others, or of the community. Even to anticipate the needs of others, with a fervent love. And not turning away when someone needs love or attention.
We listen in our relationships, in the community in which we live. And it may be that an elder person or close friend helps us to hear how God is speaking to us. And it may be through the voice of a youth. It is in our relationships with the people in our life that God forms us in holiness. And to patiently endure one another’s weaknesses, of body, or of character.
When we hear God in our life, something happens in us. A conversion of heart. A transformation of heart. - it turns our hearts of stone, to living hearts… healed and amended of vices, and growing in charity and mercy. When we hear God speak to us, it is like we wake up from being asleep. As we advance in the service of God our hearts expand, and we begin to run in the way of God, with an unspeakable sweetness of love.
How to start? A simple prayer. Here I am Lord. I am listening. Help me to hear you, and be with you today. Then notice… appreciate… sense… receive… our amen.
“What can be sweeter to us than this voice of the Lord inviting us… in his loving-kindness the Lord shows us the way of life.” -Rule of Benedict