Dai­ly Reflec­tion
Jan­u­ary 13, 2011

“If today you hear his voice, hard­en not your hearts.”

How often this refrain from Psalm 95 appears in the litur­gy.  And how often we ignore it assum­ing it doesn’t apply to our­selves as ordi­nary Chris­tians.  But it does!

The Good News of the Gospel is not com­plete with the death and res­ur­rec­tion of Jesus. The Good News con­tin­ues onto the send­ing of the Holy Spir­it by the Father and Jesus at Pen­te­cost. Indeed, the descent of the Spir­it upon the dis­ci­ples is the cul­mi­na­tion of the Paschal Mys­tery. Now through the Holy Spir­it the King­dom of God is present on earth!

And this descent has pro­found impli­ca­tions for Chris­t­ian life. The Spir­it total­ly trans­formed the lives of those dis­ci­ples gath­ered in the Upper Room for fear of the Jews — the fright­ened apos­tles now became fear­less wit­ness­es of Christ. And the descent of the Spir­it upon Chris­tians through faith and bap­tism has equal impli­ca­tions.  We are trans­formed and become new cre­ations in Christ.  Paul does not hes­i­tate to dub us “Tem­ples of the Holy Spir­it” and “the Body of Christ.”

Through the Spir­it we receive a new iden­ti­ty! How then are we to live this new iden­ti­ty? Paul exhorts us to respond to this new inte­ri­or law of the Spir­it of Christ writ­ten on our hearts -- and not sim­ply to be obser­vant of the exter­nal writ­ten law. And the Church teach­es that this voice of God emerges with­in our con­sciences.  Lis­ten to this mes­sage from Vat­i­can Coun­cil II from “The Church in the Mod­ern World.”

“For man has in his heart a law writ­ten by God.  To obey it is the very dig­ni­ty of man:  accord­ing to it he will be judged. Con­science is the most secret core and sanc­tu­ary of man.  There he is alone with God, whose voice echoes in his depths. In a won­der­ful man­ner con­science reveals that law which is ful­filled by love of God and love of neighbor.”(paragraph 16)

God guides us direct­ly through our con­sciences!  We are invit­ed to lis­ten and to respond to God by attend­ing to the deep­est voice with­in us — God’s! And so we have the immense counter-cul­tur­al chal­lenge of arrang­ing our busy sched­ules to include reg­u­lar rhythms of with­draw­al from activ­i­ty to be in silence and soli­tude with our God.

Our mod­el for lis­ten­ing is Jesus him­self. Jesus reg­u­lar­ly left the crowds and went off alone to be with his most dear Father.  In these desert places Jesus found com­mu­nion with God and strength and guid­ance for his life. Recall espe­cial­ly the forty days in the desert after his bap­tism by John before begin­ning his pub­lic min­istry and the prayer in Gar­den of Geth­se­mane before his pas­sion and death.

Like Jesus we are called to lis­ten -- and to respond -- to God’s voice: “If today you hear his voice, hard­en not your hearts.”