Dear Saints,

Today’s first reading gives us excellent practical advice for our prayer lives: “speak Lord, your servant is listening.”

How often do we get that backwards: “listen Lord, your servant is speaking?” Even worse, how often do we approach God not as servants at all, but rather as clients waiting to be served? Even secular music not infrequently laments the notion of prayer as a wishing well and God as a customer service rep.

So it’s good to get back to basics and remember that prayer is a listening exercise as well as (and before) an opportunity to petition for our own needs and wants. God already knows and has plans for all of that; it’s ours to hear him well so we can tap into his will for our lives.

That requires silence, a condition we tend to de-prioritize to both our own great detriment and that of the next generation. We are inundated with distraction; indeed, most young people have never known a world without it. Both for their sake and ours, we would do well to reintroduce the sanctity of stillness. It is in those moments that we will best hear God, such that he will be with us in all we say and do.

Christ’s Peace,

Father Daniel

δοῦλος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ