LIVING IN THE LIGHT
Spirituality for the Lay Person
Your Life Will Never
Be the Same
Patricia Chase
D
oes God still speak to us today? Often when
I lead a retreat or day of reflection, I ask the
participants this question. Most nod their heads, but
when I ask if God speaks to them individually, their
eyes reflect a quizzical expression.
The general consensus is that God
speaks through saints and the authority of
the Church, but not through the ordinary
lay person.
How can we come to know God? God
reveals himself through Sacred Scripture
and the Sacred Tradition of the Church,
but God also uses the created world and
the human person to reveal himself to us.
When someone says something that speaks
to our hearts, or we receive a phone call at
just the right moment, or are astounded by
the delicacy of a baby’s tiny fingers, know
that it is God. He who knows every hair
on our heads, each joy and frustration we
experience, and every sin as well, loves us
and wants to reveal himself to us.
The Catholic Catechism tells us that
“the desire for God is written on every
human heart, because man is created by
God and for God; and God never ceases
to draw man to himself” (CCC, no. 27).
It’s an invitation to enter into a loving
relationship with him, which insinuates
that there is dialogue between God and
each one of us. Most of us feel comfortable talking to God, but to know him
more deeply we need to listen as well.
36
Most people have not experienced si- a new light with Jesus as our compass. We
lence, waiting for a word from the Lord, see God in ways that were previously hidden by our own blindness. And the good
or being docile to the Holy Spirit in such
news is that God is initiating this relationa way that their every movement is guided by him. Yet that is exactly what each ship with each one of us, constantly placing
the desire to know him on our hearts, and
of us is called to do, much like a beautiful
patiently waiting for our response.
dance where each partner relies on the
Is this possible for you? What does it take?
other to create lyrical movement.
We enter into this relationship through Ask God, the Lord of Life, to reveal himself
in a new way, to open
Jesus Christ and by
your eyes and ears to
the power of the Holy
“We see God in ways the beauty of his truth,
Spirit. Jesus said, “I am
and for the grace to surthe way and the truth
that were previously
render your life to his
and the life. No one
hidden by our own
will. Spend time sitting
comes to the Father exblindness.”
in the presence of Jesus
cept through me. If you
in Eucharistic adoration;
know me, then you
will also know my Father” (John 14:6). It meditate with Sacred Scripture—the Living
is our relationship with Jesus that draws Word of God; pray for openness to see God
at work in whatever the day has to offer; and
us into the divine love of the Father.
be still enough to listen to his voice.
Today, Jesus invites us to encounter him
Then watch out. Your life will never be
anew, to grow in our knowledge of and in
personal relationship with him, and then to the same.
witness this Gospel truth to others by our
words and actions. We do so by the power Patricia Chase is a regional coordinator of
of the Holy Spirit, which we received at our catechetics for the Archdiocese of Detroit. She
baptism. When we surrender our lives to substitutes for Dr. Patricia Cooney Hathaway
the Holy Spirit, we are able to see things in in this issue.
Sacred Heart Major Seminary | Mosaic | Spring 2015