Answering God's Call

Answering God’s call is something we are called to from our birth.  From the earliest age, when our parents answer for us with the Sacrament of Baptism to our own growth in awareness of the presence of God and listening for his voice, we are called to hear Him and allow Him to share intimately in our lives.

My journey away from Him happened quietly enough.  The silent and lonely drama of a failed marriage was enough to leave me believing there was nowhere for me in my church.  I was now a divorced woman and I didn’t know that there was still a home with its door wide open to me.  Reflecting on that long ago time now, I realize that had I been more fully informed of the teachings of my faith, I might have saved myself a lot of heartache and loneliness.

I was just Catholic enough that no Protestant church would work for me.  Eastern religions weren’t my thing and New Age was meaningless and newly appearing . . . so . . . it was just me and God; just the two of us.  Well, that didn’t work either.  It’s hard keeping the voice of God alive and audible when there is so much noise in your life.  Work, marriage, family, going to school, and child-rearing all clashed together to effectively silence His whispers that sought my attention.

But, there were the random moments when I heard Him.  One such time was in an old cemetery in Missouri.  Our son was nine months old and suddenly and acutely I felt the fact that he was not baptized.  The cemetery was on the grounds of an old Catholic Church that still served the community in the rural mountain area it resided in.  I wondered aloud to my husband if the priest would baptize him if we asked.  He did not enthusiastically support the idea and the moment slipped away from me, the voice muted once again.  But I never forgot the moment.

Fast forward six years and another child, now around eight months old.  The whisper was finding me again but this time it arrived in a shout of unmistakable address.  At this time, a series of billboards was moving around the South Bay area between San Jose and San Francisco.  An artist had painted an image of Christ with outstretched hand.  She had the image placed on four billboards with the words “I’m speaking to you”.  Every three months, the billboards’ locations would change.  On this particular day, as I drove home from running errands, I came across one of these billboards and I nearly drove off the road.

I quickly readjusted, went around the corner to home, parked, and ran upstairs to our apartment.  I remember flinging the door open and telling my husband what had happened and that I was going to call the office at St. Patrick’s Cathedral and find out how I could get back the Church.  The message had been received, crystal clear, and I wasn’t just musing aloud this time. Whatever reservation he might have had, I was moving forward.  This was a message to me and I was not going to ignore it again.

Life moved on.  My desire to return to the Faith was achieved and Don made the journey with me.  But, I still had a long way to go and I have my son to thank for getting me on the road to really learning about my faith and educating myself on the teachings and its history.  His road became my road.  

Suffering Humanity
by
Uriel Starbuck  of St. Louis, MO

In the course of moving to this next step, God got my attention again.  I needed to forgive someone.  In an instant of recognition, I asked the Sisters of the Cross, a cloistered order in Modesto, CA, to pray for the man who was the instrument of the destruction of my marriage.  I was still fill with fear and anxiety about him, even twelve years after the fact.  

Forgiveness is an extraordinary gift.  You think you are giving the gift to someone and in reality, the gift is to you.  I remember going back to the hall where I was attending the dedication of the sisters' convent and I could feel all the hurt and fear and pain drain from my body out through my hands and my feet.  It was a physical sensation that I still remember over 20 years later.  I had heard God's voice again.  He was saying "Enough already.  Let it go.  Give it to me".  And I did.  It was just that simple.

There is no question in my mind or heart that we eventually always hear God's voice, but, we only hear when we are ready to listen.  Somewhere along the line, I started asking for a purpose, a task, something I could do as service in His name.  It felt like it was taking forever for Him to answer me.  Yes, His problem, not mine.  My hearing was fine.  Not.  

I imagine there were more than a few missed opportunities over the years but finally, one day, that crystal clear address got through to me.  Husband was stressed and unhappy.  As a consequence, I was stressed and unhappy.  So, I sat him down and told him I thought we needed to make a big change in our lives.  Certain activities needed to be eliminated and we needed to make a plan to go on a domestic mission.  With that encounter, everything changed.

Looking back on it now, I have to ask what I might have done differently so that the desert of voicelessness would not have been so long between each oasis of encounter.  Who did I have as an active Christian friend; did I read the Bible and understand it's message; did I pray regularly; did I share my beliefs and what I was learning in my own private growth?  The short answer is "sort of."  If my own living of what I knew to be true was just lukewarm, then the volume on my hearing was probably set too low as well. 

Holy Agony Chapel
at Mother Seton's Shrine in Emmitsburg, MD

We are back from mission now and have been living with the changes wrought by the experience for three months.  There is much that has been assimilated and integrated into our lives and much more still to be understood.  The experience of mission does not end when the mission time ends.  The take-a-ways are not all immediately obvious but only slowly surface through time.  

I am so grateful for this time we had.  It was enriching on not only an individual personal level but also enriching on us as a couple.  We pray together.  We talk more. Harmony has been uncovered and rediscovered.  And we are both listening God.  Our hearts are wide open.  Help us continue to see through your eyes and hear with your heart.