Pastor's Corner: How does God speak to us and how do we reply

The fair has come and gone and the temps are hotter than … well it is nice and toasty. We must be in the dog days of summer. This should be a time for us to slow down a little, rest and prepare for all the extra activities that come with fall and the start of school.

That might not be the case this summer. Locally we have experienced storms and the damage that comes with them. While on the state, national and world stage we hear of hunger, killing, threats of war and weather that seems to be destructive to humanity. While there is also much good news; we don’t seem to be consoled much by this good news and we are choosing to become a people who are fearful and defensive.

Over and over in the gospels, Jesus tells us not to be afraid. On more than one occasion he asks “where is your faith, why are you so afraid.” Having read the gospels and knowing that fear breaks down our faith and destroys our relationships with God and with one another I have to ask myself where is my faith? Why don’t I trust the Holy Spirit to strengthen me and empower me to live as one whose faith does not allow me to react to fear, but as one whose faith calls me to act as one who hears God’s voice calling me to a life of repentance, love and forgiveness.

This raises the question of how we might hear God’s voice calling to us to become a holy people. The following is a series of principles put forth by Father Ronald Rolheiser that might help us recognize voice of God calling out to us.

• The voice of God is recognized both in whispers and in soft tones, even as it is recognized in thunder and in storm.

• The voice of God is recognized wherever one sees life, joy, health color, and humor, even as it is recognized where ever one sees dying, suffering, conscriptive poverty and a beaten-down spirit.

• The voice of God is recognized in what calls us to what’s higher, sets us apart and invites us to holiness, even as it is recognized in what calls us to humility, submergence into humanity and in that which refuses to denigrate our humanity.

• The voice of God is recognized in what appears in our lives as “foreign,” as other, as “stranger,” even as it is recognized in the voice that beckons us home.

• The voice of God is the one that most challenges us and stretches us, even as it is the only voice that ultimately soothes and comforts us.

• The voice of God enters our lives as the greatest of all powers, even as it forever lies in vulnerability, like a helpless baby in the straw.

• The voice of God is always heard in the privileged and in the poor, even as it beckons us through the voice of the artist and the intellectual.

• The voice of God always invites us to live beyond all fear, even as it inspires holy fear.

• The voice of God is heard inside the gifts of the Holy Spirit, even as it invites us never to deny the complexities of our world and our own lives.

• The voice of God is always heard wherever there is genuine enjoyment and gratitude, even as it asks us to deny ourselves, die to ourselves and freely relativize all the things of this world.

I have always been taught that God is omnipresent, everywhere and in all things. I have been taught that God wants to be in loving dialogue with us at all times. I have noticed that when I try to take control of life in the midst of pain, anger, suffering and destruction, I can no longer hear God’s voice. Then fear takes over and I begin to react in unhealthy ways.

To be able to continue to hear God’s voice speaking in All the experiences of our lives we need to trust God and not ourselves. It is then that we will become active in the building up of God’s Kingdom and recognizable disciples of Jesus the Christ.

(Tim Maroney is a deacon at St. Jude Thaddeus Catholic Church, Havre.)