Sunday, February 01, 2009

Listening to God’s Voice


Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

Lord Jesus,
free us from within by our connection with God’s word and lead us to understanding, insight and faith.
Amen.

My Dear Brothers and Sisters,

It may be both helpful and challenging to take our cue for this week’s reflection from today’s responsorial psalm (Ps. 95). In an appeal to the praying assembly to hear and heed the word of God as it is spoken through prophets like Moses (Deu. 18:15-20, 1st reading), through apostles like Paul (1Cor. 7:17,32-35, 2nd reading), and through Jesus (Mk. 1:21-28, Gospel), the psalmist prays “If today you hear God’s voice, harden not your hearts.”

As we analyse the above statement, we are made aware that God continues to speak, even today, in a variety of ways and through a variety of venues. Our ancestors in the faith stood in awe before God’s word. They sensed its power, its wisdom, its nearness. God’s word was connected to everything that happens in a day, in a lifetime. The author of Deuteronomy gave voice to this connection: “and these words I command you today shall be in your heart… teach them to your children… talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and gates” (6:6-9).

Nothing is left out here. The word is connected to sitting, walking, to lying down and rising up. It is on our hand, between our eyes; it marks our comings and goings. To understand how connected we must be to God’s word, recall the experience of Helen Keller. Blind, deaf and mute and locked inside herself, she was given to frequent bouts of rage and frustration. Relief and freedom came to Helen in the person of her teacher, Annie Sullivan. One day, as teacher and pupil were at the water pump, Sullivan held Keller’s hand under the flowing water and tapped into it the sign for water. Water, Word. Suddenly, Helen’s face shone with understanding. The water connected with the word. That sign, that tapping, it means this wet, flowing, cool stuff in my hand!

There is another, even greater connection when the word that is tapped into our hands and hearts and lives is the word we call God’s word. When the word that is spoken and heard in liturgy, hymn, psalm or prayer, these divinely inspired human words stammer a connection between people and God. These are human words, yet we understand them to be claimed by divine power. These words connect us to God, and when that connection is made, their lives are changed. Like Helen Keller, freed from within by the connection of water and word, so does our connection with God’s word bring about understanding, insight, freedom and faith.

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