Bishop Edward J. Burns blesses Sarahi Puentes’s Confirmation gifts at a reception following Mass March 25 at St. Monica Catholic Church. (JENNA TETER/The Texas Catholic)
By Father Timothy Gollob
Special to The Texas Catholic
During this Lenten season, the refrain after the reading from the prophets has warned us, “If today you hear God’s voice, harden not your hearts!”
This warning has a two-fold difficulty. In the first place, it is hard to discern just what God’s voice sounds like and in what circumstances God wants to capture our attention.
Secondly, when we do figure out that we have some sort of divine directive pointed out to us by our conscience, we do all that is humanly possible to ignore that call or to minimize our personal obligation in the matter.
For instance, I was asked to visit two patients in a local hospital last week. Neither one of them was a parishioner, but I took some time to go over and attempt to see them. It turned out that neither of them was available at the time. I asked, “What was my going over all about?” I was on my way back home when I remembered another very sick person to whom I had given the sacraments of the sick.
Going to that person’s room was an easy task. I found his whole family assembled to pray for healing. My account of his joy at receiving the Body of Christ was a consolation to them. What I had considered to be an empty trip turned out to be a call to give a positive message to that family.
Then the following week, I was assisting at the funeral of a young lady. She had learned in her Catholic education at John XXIII School about the commandments. The teachers had taught her to love God with her whole heart and her whole soul. She was attentive to the possibility that God could be giving her tasks at any moment of her life.
Many of her friends stood up and gave witness to the joy of her friendship for them. They spoke again and again of how she had discovered that her service to the eternal, omnipotent God was in the teaching of young students. They were like her children because they were God’s children.
Her special love was for the homeless and the abandoned children. God’s voice had spoken to her inner being and she had tendered her heart to the ones who needed her most.
When was the last time you heard God’s voice?
Father Timothy Gollob is the pastor of Holy Cross Catholic Church in Oak Cliff.
