Ordinary Time 2 - Listen to the Voice(s)

 

Homily for Ordinary Time 2

January 14, 2024

Listen To The Voice(s)

 

            To prepare for this homily, I went grocery shopping. It’s amazing the wide variety of philosophies you can see on display at your local Big Y. In the parking lot, I saw an Amazon delivery vehicle emblazoned with the words, “Caution: Contents May Cause Happiness.” Really? The stuff I order on Amazon will fill the deepest longing of my soul? Looking at the Amazon driver, he didn’t look all that happy. A walk down the potato chip aisle proclaimed, “Satisfy Your Cravings” – as if our physical desires should be indulged whenever they pop up. Then in the checkout line, there was a copy of “People” magazine which really should be called “Rich People” magazine, since no mere mortals are featured within, and which touts that fame and fortune are all that’s worth pursuing. Or…maybe I’m reading too much into my shopping list!

            As we go through our daily life, there are a lot of voices we hear – from media, advertisers, TikTok, the neighborhood rumor mill, our spouse’s expectations, our kids’ demands…we are bombarded by messages every single day – often contradictory, confusing, chaotic.

            Christ offers us a better, clearer way. Can you hear His voice of Truth – and do you recognize it as His voice? Samuel didn’t – he had no idea it was God calling him, because he wasn’t experienced enough to hear the voice of God. But Andrew and Peter did – they encountered this man, Jesus, and with that one invitation “Come and see”, they recognized Him as the long-awaited Savior of the world.

            In a world of conflicting messages, can you discern the voice of God? The world says “live your truth”, but Christ says, “I Am the Truth.” The world says, “Do what makes you happy.” Christ tells us, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, they must deny themselves and take up their Cross.” The world says, “Do what feels good.” Christ tells us, “Make of your bodies living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to the Lord.” The world tells us, “Look out for number one.” But Christ responds, “Whatever you do for the least of your brothers, you do for Me.” The world says, “Whoever dies with the most toys wins.” Christ says, “If you wish to be perfect, go sell what you have, give to the poor, and come follow Me.”

            So how do we hear the voice of God, amidst the many cacophonous voices of the world? St. Paul instructs us to “Be transformed by the renewal of your mind, so that you can know what is the will of God, what is good, pleasing, and perfect.” We listen to the voice of God in silence – spending time with Him in prayer. We listen to His voice in His Word – spending time with the Scriptures daily. We listen to Him in the Mass – here, His word is proclaimed. We listen to Him in the teachings of His Body, the Church – we study what the Church Fathers, the Popes, and the saints have said. If we’re spending more time on Instagram than with the Lord and His Words, we will have the voices of the world shouting at us…while the voice of God is often only a whisper.

            But in being transformed by His Words, the world is transformed. One of my favorite saints is Bl. Frederick Ozanam, a Frenchman from the nineteenth century who first listened to the voices of the world, then the voices of his pride, then the voice of Christ coming through an unlikely source. As a young man, he was very infected by the anti-Catholicism that was still residual in France due to the French Revolution. He turned his back on the Church and began to read many anti-Catholic writers, listening to their voices over the voice of the Lord. However, he had a teacher who was a devout Catholic who brought him back and showed him the truth of the Catholic Faith. After returning to the Sacraments, he became on-fire with a desire to defend the Faith…mainly to puff-up his pride. As he was in law school, he used to organize religious debates among the students so that he could show off his knowledge of Catholicism. He would usually win the debates, but at one certain debate, an opponent shouted to him, “Your Church may be true, but what is it doing for the poor right now? Show us your good works, and we will believe you!”

            Frederick took this as the voice of God. He gathered seven of his friends together and they began to visit the poor of Paris, bringing food and fuel and medicine to the poor on a regular basis. Pretty soon others heard about this charitable work, and they began to call themselves the St. Vincent de Paul Society, which still flourishes today in the Catholic Church, providing charity to the poor. Although his spiritual director wanted him to become a priest, Frederick knew his calling was marriage, so he married and had a daughter, continuing his good work with the poor. As an aside, his spiritual director was complaining to the Pope that Frederick had fallen into the “trap of marriage” as he called it, to which the Pope replied, “I thought Our Savior established seven sacraments, not six sacraments and a trap!”

            At the time of Frederick’s death, there were over 2,000 members of the St. Vincent de Paul Society – and today that society numbers 800,000. Bl. Frederick Ozanam had to cut through the lies of the world – the atheistic lies of the French Revolution, the lies of his own pride – and listen to the voice of God spoken through a surprising opponent in a debate, who gave him his mission in life.

            As you go through your week, I encourage you to pay attention to which voices you are listening to. Which messages you are receiving from the world, the flesh, and the Evil One, and counter them with the Truth of the Lord, which we encounter in His Word and in daily prayer.