Pastor's Reflection

Do you speak listening?

Listening is a rare parlance. Listening and paying attention aren’t the same thing. Concentrating on what someone else is saying simply pays attention to what we may want to hear, the solution we are counting on, the way we want things to work out, or if things are going our way. Hearing is front loaded with a result.

Listening waits. It doesn’t always agree. It doesn’t let the other person get their way. Listening absorbs far more than outcomes or results. In fact, listening casts out anxiety about results.

The Gospel for this Sunday focuses on listening and the refusal to listen. Listening goes far beyond information. We may “hear” all the information conveyed by someone in conversation, but still not have listened.

Listening hears what words can’t contain.

To learn the language of listening doesn’t mean fixing something “wrong about me, reading the next self-help bestseller, or following the latest relationship guru. Listening means navigating the anxiety underneath.

Jesus is the navigator. He leads us. As we pray – even for three minutes in the morning, after a lunch hour, or before we go to bed, we invite Jesus in to teach us to let go of fear. And He leads us. He leads us to the Chapel of Our Lady here on campus for adoration during the day. He leads us to Confession. He leads us to Mass.

And along the way, He teaches. He teaches silently in our souls. His teaching, over time, frees us from things we have been preoccupied with for so long we have forgotten why we are preoccupied with them.

Yes, we can speak listening. But it means letting go. Letting go of fear. Letting go of all we are holding onto, so much so that we have confused what we are holding on to with the real us.

Let’s allow Jesus to teach you and me the syllables of listening. Not so that we become a pushover for others to get what they want, but so that we can be free to meet Christ and connect with others who hear His gentle voice.

God bless,

Msgr. Brian Bransfield

Jesus had called His disciples. They had seen His miracles. They had heard His teaching. But now, something new …

“Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised” (Mt. 16:21).

Suffering doesn’t seem to fit. And Jesus shows His disciple that not only must He suffer, but He must also “suffer greatly” … and He will be killed.

We can fall into the misunderstanding that religion is a holy self-improvement program. A call, miracles and good teaching can easily be seen to blend with a contemporary, yet sacred “personal empowerment” plan. We can misconstrue faith and religion to be similar to a gym membership where we select to do cardio, weights and aerobics and then see the results over time. If the results aren’t measuring up to where we want them, we give up our effort.

Faith is very different. We don’t control God. We are in relationship with Him Who is our Creator. And we are called to follow Him. Following Him often means contending with forces opposed to God – worldly ways, temptation, and the persecution that follows from doing what is right and just.

Jesus is the Son of God, and we see the way the world treated Him. And Jesus helps to prepare His disciples for the same ordeal. But Jesus promises us that if we endure with Him, with Him we too will be raised from the dead.

That is the astounding promise of Jesus: He has conquered death, and if we are joined to Him through the Sacraments and the life of grace, we share in His resurrection.

Something new. Something beautiful. A call, a miracle, a profound teaching – even in the midst of the suffering we endure. The Lord promises us that if we cling to Him, He will deliver us.

God bless, Msgr.
Brian Bransfield

The spiritual life can be a life of disappointment. We don’t often show it on the outside to others, but if we are trying to live the spiritual life of prayer, we are most likely often disappointed.

In the spiritual life, we can be tempted to high ideals. We want to “get it” quickly. When we pray, we want to “feel” as holy on the inside as others look on the outside when we see them praying.

So, we try one method of spirituality after another: meditation, saying prayers, trying various prayer forms, or small group spirituality. In themselves and centered on Christ, these can be quite positive.

But often we try to feel the results of our prayer … to see improvement, to measure up, to see results, especially in our internal feelings. And in this, the spiritual life can detour to a self-improvement technique.

And if it does, we fall through a trapdoor and slide down right into pride. And pride is always disappointing. But pride is very attractive to our world: “Expect results. Demand results. Get ahead. Be the best.”

So, when we pray, if the prayers or prayer form don’t automatically deliver results, we do one of two things. Either we blame ourselves and go through the motions. Or we blame God. And then we drift and give up.

The “Expect results. Demand results. Control results. Immediate results. Automatic results. Get ahead. Be the best.” formula is a lot of poison to pump into our system at every turn. We apply that game plan to our education, recreation, work, family life, and prayer.

When that pride prescription has been pumped into us for so many years, in so many areas of our life, it takes a long time for our nervous system to pump all the toxins it carries back out again.

And the first step is good disappointment with the pride prescription. In that context, disappointment is a tremendous grace in the spiritual life. It is a call, not to make things “better” but to let go of the pride prescription.

Hearing this call, we find the weakness to stop imposing the pride prescription on ourselves and others. In that freedom, we can open up room in our soul to meet Jesus and say to Him with Peter: “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God” (Mt. 16:16).

God bless,

Msgr. Bransfield