I recently posted about trying to hear one person’s voice amongst a singing choir, and related that to how I often experience hearing God’s voice in my life. However, doing the exact opposite can also lead me closer to God, as evidenced this past Sunday.

I love it when, whether it be at Adoration, or right after Communion at Mass, or just during any regular P&W session, the worship ministers stop playing and leave it up to the congregation to praise with one voice. When this happens, as it always does with “Shout to the Lord,” which is why it’s one of my favorites to sing, sometimes I’ll stop singing and focus on listening to the sound of the community as a whole, not focusing on the voice of the person next to me or behind me, or of the worship leader. Just the sound that our collective voices make as we sing to our God.

Whenever I feel like there are very few people who are actually interested in investing themselves in Mass (or P&W, or Adoration), this trick works to prove to me that the entire church is filled with people praising our one God with one voice. We are truly one body in Christ.

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Confession time. I’ve been feeling really distant from God lately. And it’s really all my fault. I haven’t gone for a prayer walk since I found out my friend had 6 months left to live. More recently, I’ve deicded things are going to change. Like Fr. Steve said today, I NEED God. I can’t keep pretending that he’s not calling me to go out on that walk with Him. So before mass, I was talking to God asking Him to help me make that journey back to Him. And guess what, He already was helping, I just didn’t know it.

The readings and the homily were awesome, but I don’t feel like commenting on them, so I won’t. After that, came the song “Light the Fire.” I realized two things during this song. I realized I was wearing a shirt from a past retreat. Not a normal retreat shirt either. It’s just a plain white t-shirt. Plain white because it symbolized the emptying of ourselves. We were also told to just wear that shrit anytime we felt like emptying ourselves. Today, I wasn’t thinking like that, I just wanted a white t-shirt. But after I realized what I was wearing, I decided that was exactly what I needed to do – empty myself so God could come in.

The other thing I realized was I love the song “Light the Fire!” It reminded me of a blog I wrote not too long ago. But I don’t think it was posted here., so let me copy and paste it for you….

“Ok, so this analogy just came to me the other day (and while the match part is stolen from Bob Rice, the rest is mine! all mine!!) So it might sound a little strange, but just go with me, it’ll all make sense in the end. (:

Communion is like wood. Focus events and Lifeteen events and just basic fellowship is like newspaper. Prayer are like birthday candles wrapped in wax paper. Sin is like water. The sacraments and retreats are like a match handed to you. All of these fictional items (except for the match which is handed to you) are located in your heart. Oh and in this fictional place, it’s always winter and it’s your job to keep people warm with a fire! (:

Now that I’ve said all that, let me clarify a little.

Your faith journey begins at baptism, Your little baby heart is lit on fire for God. And prayer and fellowship keep it alive. Suddenly you can go to communion (which means you should be old enough to pay attention and know what’s going on in mass). If you do that, (the key is doing that. If you don’t pay attention, then you don’t get the wood) then it’s easier to keep the fire going, cause now you’ve got wood, now just newspaper. Sin is the problem, it constantly tries to put that fire out. It’s up to us to keep it going to keep those around us “spiritually warm.” (I like that phrase!)

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Sometimes it’s amazing how well a song I hear in the car perfectly fits my mood and makes things better. It’s almost as if my car is in my head and trying to talk to me (maybe my car is a Bumblebee from Transformers?). But yesterday, on my drive to the gym from work, this was not the case. Regardless of which station I turned on, there seemed to be a common theme: LOVE. Now don’t get me wrong, I think love is a great thing, but sometimes you just aren’t in the mood to hear song after song about people in love. Just to name a few that I heard… “She’s In Love with the Boy” – Trisha Yearwood, “Making Memories of Us” – Keith Urban, “Love Like This” – Natasha Bedingfield, “How Sweet it is to be Loved by You” – James Taylor

Hoping to change my luck, I put in my iPod and put it on shuffle. First up, a clip from Dane Cook’s comedy routine where he states, “When you’re not in love, when you don’t have love, everybody you know falls in love on like the same day.” Next song on the iPod – “I’ll Cover You” from Rent. Tired of the music, I turned it off.

When I finally arrived at the gym, I figured I would bring my book to read while running instead of listening to my iPod. Seeing as the book I’m currently reading is about a drug addict, I thought I had a good chance that love would not show up there – but I was wrong. Guess who falls in love? Yep! The drug addict.

At this point I was actually laughing at the irony of the situation. The one time I don’t feel like thinking about love, and I am being hit over the head with it.

On the drive home, I gave my iPod one more chance to redeem itself, and I’m glad I took that chance. First song was “Loving Me” by Jon McLaughlin. To me, the song speaks of God’s love and grace, and at this moment, it was exactly the song I needed to hear. Sometimes I get so caught up in my own life that I forget to see that God does love me – always – and that he won’t give up on me. Maybe that’s what he was trying to tell me the whole day, but I was too busy to notice. I’m glad he kept trying to tell me, because eventually I got it.

Tonight, on my way home from work, I’m listening to love songs.

Lyrics to “Loving Me”

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So, My journey with lifeteen has been awesome. Not only did i meet some spectacular friends, i have done things that i never thought i would like going to Paris and drinking Doug’s spit!!!! It has been a great ride. I know that i wouldn’t be where i am in life not only in my relationship but in my life in general. I have learned things about myself through lifeteen that i will use forever. Like one thing to do instead of have sex is to lick someone’s face. Or that im a real bad dancer. The most important thing and most valuable thing i have learned is to be myself and love myself. I am getting better at thanks to the love and respect i am shown at Lifeteen. Thanks so much to everyone. Especially the seniors and core cuz they’ve been with me all four years. Don’t think that you youngins’ didn’t help cuz thanks to you also cuz i have made great friends in all of you. Thanks everyone I will miss you!

-Catie

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Yesterday, I spent the evening at Francis Howell Central High School, listening to their choirs sing during their spring concert. I’m not usually one to just randomly attend choir concerts, but, since my niece was in this one, I felt it might be a good idea to go. My niece is in the concert choir at FHC, along with what had to be 50 of her classmates.

The sound of all 50 of those young women, all singing in harmony, was pretty cool. But if I focused just hard enough, if I turned my head slightly to the side and closed my eyes, I could hear just Emily. I could hear her one single voice standing out from the crowd of 50, if for only a few seconds. After that, her voice would fade back into the group until I was able to refocus and find her voice again.

Isn’t this a bit how God’s voice works, too? I know, at least for me, there are times where I’ll catch just a couple of the words He’s saying rising above the sounds of a million other voices, only to lose the rest of the message as I’m distracted by the crowd. If I want to hear His message for me, I have to refocus, drown out the rest of the world, and listen carefully and particularly. When I’m able to do that, however rarely, there is always something to be heard.

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