Listen Up: Weekly Message for 02-23-16

Dear Friends in Christ,

Whenever Jesus was on the verge of an especially big moment, he made time for prayer. He spent 40 days in the desert in prayer before beginning his public ministry. He spent a full night in prayer before choosing his apostles. His agony on Holy Thursday night exuded prayer.

There is a lesson in that for all of us. Time spent in prayer before a big decision is priceless.

Prayer isn’t easy, of course, not least of all because we sometimes forget one of its most important ingredients: listening.

Ideally we should speak to God with the goal of being able to hear him speak to us. This is what discernment is about: listening in order to try to figure out what Our Lord wants us to do.

Discernment requires preparation. And one key ingredient of that preparation is silence. Without interior silence we will find prayer doubly difficult.

This prompts a suggestion and a request.

The suggestion is: Find one way you can carve out a little more silence in your life this Lent. You might consider keeping the radio off before 9 a.m. or turning the TV or Internet off after 9 p.m.

The request is: Please offer up a prayer for those attending the Regnum Christi territorial convention this week near Chicago.

Regnum Christi is the spiritual movement that underpins RCSpirituality.org and lends it its name. This week’s convention marks another key step forward in Regnum Christi’s discernment of God’s role for it in the new evangelization.

The Regnum Christi members will be doing a lot of praying and listening in these days. And counting on prayers galore…

Thanks for any prayers you can offer. Count on mine for you.

God bless,

Father Edward McIlmail, L.C.
Ask a Priest contributor