Wednesday of the Second Week of Advent
December 12, 2007
"Silence, all mankind, in the presence of the Lord! For He stirs forth from His holy dwelling."
- Zechariah 2:14-17

We are constantly fed with what I call "fireworks."" Relentlessly the media gives us the loud, big, bright, dramatic, showy. It is as if the only way we will get the message is to be bombarded by an explosive presentation. In the face of the loud and big and bright and showy, what place does silence have?

We are created for greatness and infinity but, to our own detriment, I think we take on the media's presentation and translate that into the way we look to experience God. We look for the loud, big, bright, and showy God and we miss so many of the powerful ways he is reaching out to us in our daily lives. We want the miracles of the blind seeing, seas parting, cancer being cured etc. but if God is not easily seen in the big, bright and obvious, we ask why He is absent.

God is not absent, you are!

How can we get away from the spiritual liability (if, in fact, we do have it) of always looking for God in the fireworks? Silence. Did you know that silent and listen are two words composed of the same six letters? We need to look and listen for all the ways God is coming to us in our normal, daily existence. That is why we have two ears and one mouth! Listen twice as much as you speak. Could you imagine how much our pray-ers and thus our world would be if we listened to God twice as much as we talked to him in our prayer? We would see and move much more with his infinite, transforming power making this world his family of love.

Heaven relentlessly seeks to pour itself out in you. Be silent and listen. Roll out the red carpet each day and let heaven speak in the depth of your soul. Pray to be awed by Infinity.

We are infinitely blessed!

+ Fr. John