Three Ways to Hear His Voice

He taught them as one having authority. (Mark 1:22)

From of old, the Almighty promised that a voice would ring out which would carry the divine guarantee of truth. He made this promise to a people like us: a people seeking the Promised Land, needing to hearken to the divine voice in order to find our way.

What if no voice of truth guided us? What if the only source for truth was me myself?

That would be a sketchy situation. I would want to have one set of rules when I was in one mood, and a different set when I was in another. Hungry? One set of rules. Angry? A different set. Eyes fixed on a toy I want to play with? Another set. Life without the voice of God would leave a person fat, friendless, and maxed-out with credit-card debt.

Thank God, then, that He speaks to us. With authority. He speaks to us with the authority of the final judge, before Whom we will have to answer for everything done or left undone.

Telling Beads

Click here for beautiful rosary beads.

It would seem that our Catholic friends are given to a great deal of repetition in prayer. Some of the poor creatures say, “Hail, Mary!” as often and as fast as they can.

None of us prays the Holy Rosary with the attention that it deserves.

BUT:

Isn’t it better to say the Our Father, the Sacred Name of Jesus, and the holy name of Mary many times? I mean, as opposed to not doing that?

…The Rosary is a bottomless mystery that can only be understood from within. The Holy Father’s words at St. Patrick’s Cathedral are especially applicable to the recitation of the Rosary:

Stained glass windows flood the interior [of the church] with mystic light. From the outside, those windows are dark, heavy, even dreary. But once one enters the church, they suddenly come alive; reflecting the light passing through them, they reveal all their splendor.

Many writers – here in America we can think of Nathaniel Hawthorne – have used the image of stained glass to illustrate the mystery of the Church herself.

It is only from the inside, from the experience of faith and ecclesial life, that we see the Church as she truly is: flooded with grace, resplendent in beauty, adorned by the manifold gifts of the Spirit.

…Yesterday was the 59th anniversary of the foundation of the Missionaries of Charity!