"Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth." - 1 Kings 3:10"Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth." - 1 Kings 3:10
God speaks to man in many ways. Only to a few, and to them but rarely, does He speak in the form of a miraculous communication; in other ways, however, His voice is heard by all. He reveals Himself in Nature. "The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof." Everything in nature, if only thoughtfully looked at, proclaims its Maker. "The heavens show forth the glory of God and the firmament declareth the work of His hands." - Psalm 18:1
To the religious mind which sees things beneath the surface, God speaks in history; He speaks in passing events, public and personal, which faith, like a divine light, often makes transparent. But more direcdy, more audibly, more universally, God speaks to man through his conscience. For the voice of conscience, commanding, approving, rebuking with supreme authority, is and can be but the voice of God. It is heard indeed in the depths of the soul, and is one of the functions of our moral nature. But that nature God so fashioned as to give forth when touched His own law, just as ingeniously contrived instruments are made to gather in human utterances and to repeat them at will.
And then we know that man, especially the Christian, is not left to his unaided faculties. The grace of God is ever present, stirring them up and strength ening them. What we hear, therefore, in the silent chambers of the soul is not merely the voice of our moral nature echoing the voice of God; it is God Himself emphasizing, as it were, that same voice, and causing it to be more distinctly and more accurately heard; the two voices, that of our moral nature and that of grace, being so blended together that, like two notes in unison, they reach the ear as one.
Thus God speaks to us all day long, sometimes in loud, imperative tones, sometimes in gentle whispers. At one time He commands or warns; at another He gently suggests and persuades. For he speaks net only to intimate or to recall positive duties, but also "to show a more excellent way" - the way of the counsels.
Often, too, in the night, when the stir of life has subsided and all is silent around us, does that voice reach us still more distinctly, especially if we lie abed sleepless. Then, indeed, it not unfrequently happens that the realities, the duties, the responsibilities, the mistakes, the faults, the failings of daily life or of lengthened periods stand out before us with a distinctness and a vividness unknown at any other time. But whenever and however the voice reaches us, our duty in regard to it is to listen and to obey.
"To listen" like the Psalmist: "Audiam quid loquatur in me Dominus." For, without listening, much will be lost of the warnings of conscience and of the promptings of grace. The sound of the alarm clock awakens those who have accustomed themselves to obey the signal. If they disregard its warning for some time, they cease to hear it. So men's consciences are hardened and deadened by not being heeded; they are sharpened and made ever more delicate by constant attention. Just as the trained ear of the expert detects sounds which go unnoticed by ordinary people, so the man of tender conscience catches appeals from within and from above which are lost to all others. The saints were admirable in this regard. They had trained themselves to heed the faintest sounds of the divine voice.
But we listen only "to obey." If obedience followed not on hearing, better not hear at all. "He that knew not and did things worthy of stripes" says Our Lord, "shall be beaten with few stripes; but the servant who knew the will of his master and did not according to his will shall be beaten with many stripes." - Luke 12:47. Knowledge always entails responsibility. Listening and obeying comprise everything. "Blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it." - Luke 11:28. Men are invited to do both through fear or through love. The slave is attentive and he is obedient. He watches the least sign of his master's will, and he hastens to carry it out, because he apprehends the consequence of failing in either. Love reaches the same results, but more easily and more fully. When a mother reposes near the couch of her sick child, she listens even in her sleep, and the least sign of discomfort in the little sufferer awakens her. So is it with those who love God. They are alive to the slightest indications of His will, even in circumstances most calculated to distract their attention. "I sleep," says the spouse in the Canticle, "and my heart watcheth." And as they hear they obey promptly, joyfully, generously.
"Loquere Domine quia audit servus tuus."
"Good is the cloister's silent shade,
Cold watch and pining fast;
Better the mission's wearing strife,
If there thy lot be cast.
Yet none of these perfection needs;
Keep thy heart calm all day,
And catch the words the Spirit there
From hour to hour may say.
Then keep thy conscience sensitive;
No inward token miss;
And go where grace entices thee;
Perfection lies in this." - Father Faber
- from Daily Thoughts for Priests, by Father John Baptist Hogan, S.S., D,D., 1899; it has the Imprimatur of Archbishop John Joseph Williams, Archdiocese of Boston, Massachusetts