Memorial of St. Bonaventure, Bishop & Doctor of the Church
Do the works of God seem ‘normal’ to you? We participate in Mass week after week, year after year. It’s easy to get used to the way God works in our lives. Is conversion a word that brings more static memories than dynamic and present questions? This is most of us, and it’s who Jesus is speaking to in today’s Gospel. The difficult thing about God’s call is its constancy. God loves us always and every day. The Spirit enlivens us every day. So it’s very easy to take the every-day and let it be background noise that gets ignored. The reality is more nuanced. God’s everyday presence has different words for each different daily situation. As we move from season to season in our lives, God speaks the words we need to hear. The tough thing is to keep listening.
Has it been awhile since you were surprised by God? Sometimes we are caught off guard in awe of the beauty of creation or the joy of love and relationships, and we can ascribe the experience to no one else but God’s grace. When was the last time that happened to you? Sometimes we receive a conviction to do some specific good work that seems to come from outside ourselves; the Spirit touches our hearts and pushes us to act. When was the last time that happened to you? Sometimes our long-held beliefs are challenged and we reset priorities to become more Christ-like. When is that last time the Lord changed your mind?
I believe that God continues to work in all sorts of ways in our world today, but my inability to see divine work has more to do with me than it does with God. I am concerned with many things; young children, professional development, marriage, homeownership. My relationship with God is frequently quiet. The way God works has become ‘normal’ and ‘predictable’ to me. I have fallen into a routine where if I am driven in my vocation as a married Christian man, a husband and father, that I’m answering God’s call. It’s not an incorrect statement; there is a lot of truth there. The daily changes of growing children and a degrading house have me on my toes trying to figure it all out, so the unchanging God that I serve doesn’t get the proper amount of thought and energy. To answer all the questions in the last paragraph… it’s been a while.
So what must we do to see again our Lord’s continuous presence? What will open my eyes? If God is working miracles around me and I’m not noticing, what do I need to change? God’s miracles are a double benefit- they heal us in the moment, and they also convince us of God’s power and our need for a converted response. In my case, I believe the Spirit is inviting my back to a life of daily prayer that leaves room for listening to God’s voice. I need to pray over my day when it begins, recall it prayerfully when it ends, and leave time at both ends for silence, to listen for the Spirit’s movement. What about you? What does your response to Jesus’s questions today sound like? Lord, help us to see your movement in our world, and change our hearts as miraculously as You have changed our world.
—Chris Nieport