Dec 5

Do You Hear What I Hear?

The second week of Advent finds us in the desert with John the Baptist, that “voice of one crying out.” John did not become the messenger who prepared the way of the Lord of his own accord. We hear in today’s Gospel that “the word of God came to John” and then he went throughout the Jordan region preaching repentance and baptizing. John didn’t just hear the word of God; he listened to the word of God. There’s a big difference. How often do we hear people without ever really listening to them? Our spouse or child tells us a story, even as we glance at our phone or at the TV or the magazine we’re reading. We’re so distracted. We have so much to do. We’ve become so engrained with the mentality of multi-tasking that we don’t even realize that we’ve forgotten how to really listen to anyone. Unfortunately, the same can be said for our listening relationship with God. We sit in prayer but think about work. We let the Rosary beads pass through our fingers and mouth the words of familiar prayers, even as we mentally run through a list of our appointments for the next day. As we head through this next week, let’s shift our focus to listening, which means turning down the volume on so many other things that clamor for our attention, and tuning into the frequency of the Spirit. See if you can let all the white noise of the world fade into the background so the still, small voice can be heard above the din.