Then
Isaiah said: Listen, O house of David! Is it not enough for you to weary
people, must you also weary my God? Therefore the Lord himself will give you
this sign: the virgin shall be with child, and bear a son, and shall name him
Emmanuel, which means “God is with us!”
Isaiah 7:-14
Mary
said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to
your word.” Luke 1:38
Piety
“Here I am Lord. I come to do your will.” Psalm 40
Study
There used to be a commercial on television
about an investment company that has since been gobbled up in mergers. When one of the actors said that his broker
was from the company, all the extraneous loud conversations stopped and people listened
to what was expected to be a great stock tip or investment strategy. “When EF
Hutton talks, people listen.”
Today, there is so much noise, how can we
really take time to listen and to hear? Our
first reading reveals that the Lord spoke to Ahaz. Yet, Ahaz acted like us. He refused to listen and follow the instructions
until Isaiah steps in. Then, the Lord
speaks to Mary through an angel. When
reading accounts in the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament, when the Lord
speaks, people listen. Sometimes, the
Lord uses others to intervene. In Ahaz
case, it was Isaiah. In Mary’s case it
was Gabriel. Who might it be in your
case?
It seems so easy for these Biblical
characters to listen to the Lord. But it
was not and it remains hard. And the listening is just the first step. The doing comes next.
Action
How is the Lord trying to get your attention
today? Unless you take some time to
disconnect the earbuds, the tiny screen, and the other distractions, you might
not hear what the Lord has to say.
The Carmelites have an interesting little
Internet posting. They call it the Daily
Disconnect. You can get it right there
on your Facebook page. The challenge is
to stop everything else that you are doing and spend three minutes with the
Lord. Three minutes is less than a
commercial break and only slightly longer than those EF Hutton
commercials.
As one of the other advertisers of my youth
used to admonish, “Try it. You’ll like
it.”
No comments:
Post a Comment