The Jesuit Guide To (Almost) Everything - James Martin [59]
But for most people the idea of listening to God is even more subtle than the ways I’ve just been describing. So let’s look at how God most often communicates in prayer with people. The following are more common ways to listen to God’s voice in prayer.
LISTENING CAREFULLY
Emotions are a key way that God speaks in prayer. You might be praying about a favorite Bible passage, and suddenly you feel happiness over being closer to God, or anger over how Jesus or the prophets were mistreated, or sorrow over the plight of the poor. God may be speaking to you through those emotions. Remember the story of Wanda, the unemployed woman in the community center? During my prayer, I felt sorrow for her, which seemed to have been one way that God was leading me to care for her.
These invitations to listen can be easily overlooked because they are often fleeting. If we’re not careful, we’ll miss them.
Insights are another way that God speaks in prayer. Perhaps you’re praying for clarity, and you receive an insight that allows you to see things in a new light. You may see a novel way of approaching an old problem.
Or you may, in a flash, perceive something surprising about God. Let’s say you’re reading a Gospel story that speaks of Jesus going off to pray by himself. You might have heard this story many times, but this time an insight arrives: If even Jesus could take time off from his busy schedule to pray, perhaps I could do the same. Here the experience is not so much emotional as intellectual.
While a few spiritual directors may privilege emotional moments in prayer, it’s important not to neglect the way that an intellectual insight can be as meaningful.
Memories also float to the surface in prayer. Here God may invite you to remember something that consoles or delights you. What is God saying to you through those consoling memories?
A few years ago, for example, during a retreat in Gloucester, Massachusetts, I became consumed with doubts about chastity and concerned about loneliness as a celibate man. Not that I was thinking of breaking my vow. It was more of an abstract worrying. And I asked God to take away the loneliness.
Suddenly, as if a valve had been opened, warm memories flooded into my mind. Memories of the friends I had made since entering the Jesuits—this Jesuit from my novitiate; this sister in East Africa; this young woman I knew during my theology studies; even someone who worked at the retreat house where I was staying—arose into my consciousness. These memories reminded me of the love that I’ve been given in my Jesuit life.
The fundamental attitude of the believer is of one who listens. It is to the Lord’s utterances that he gives ear. In as many different ways and on as many varied levels as the listener can discern the word and will of the Lord manifested to him, he must respond.
—David Asselin, S.J. (1922–1972)
Many might dismiss that as a coincidence: happening to remember these people just when I was praying about loneliness. But God often gives us such consoling memories as a way of saying, Remember what I have done.
In the Gospel of Luke (1:26–38), the angel Gabriel visits Mary to foretell the birth of Jesus. She questions Gabriel, saying, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” Gabriel tells her that the Holy Spirit will “overshadow” her. He also reminds her that her elderly cousin, Elizabeth, is pregnant. “This is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren.” In other words, see, and remember what God has already done.
Memories may reveal bitter things, too. One of the best examples comes from William Maxwell’s novel So Long, See You Tomorrow, the tale of a friendship between two young boys. Written in retrospect, the narrator tells the story of how his friend Cletus was ostracized