Heeding God's Words, God's Voice, God's Commands

In today's responsorial psalm, God says to us: "If today you hear [my] voice, harden not your hearts."  In the first reading, Jeremiah 7: 23-28, the Lord says to the Israelites and to us: Listen to my voice; then I will be your God and you shall be my people. Walk in all the ways that I command you, so that you may prosper."  Saddened, God tells us that "they obeyed not, nor did they pay heed. They walked in the hardness of their evil hearts, and turned their backs, not their faces, to me....This is the nation that does not listen to the voice of the Lord, its God, or take correction. Faithfulness has disappeared; the word itself has banished from their speech." Is that also true of you and me? Is that true of our nation, our country, our city, our society, our family, our religious communities, our parishes?

Satan, a fallen intelligent angel, roams the world seeking souls to devour. In no way does He want us to listen to God's voice. He and those angels who followed him did not!  They lost their home in heaven and no way want us to achieve that goal!  May we take heed of God's voice directing us, guiding us, beckoning us to do God's will, keep God's commandments, listening to the prophets in our midst, some of them children used by God to direct us toward the good.

Listening to Right Voices

Today’s first reading, Gen. 2: 4b-9, 15-17,  continues the story of God’s creation of the world.  Having created the earth and all living things on the face of the earth, all of the plants and animals and creepy things,  the fishes of the sea,  the birds of the air, God  needed someone to care for his creation. Humans were created. God first made Adam and then, realizing that it is not good for man to be alone, created Eve to be his helpmate and companion. God commanded Adam to till the earth.  Of all of the trees in Paradise, he and his companion, Eve, were commanded not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” lest you die”.  Lured by its beauty and lied to by Satan, Eve succumbed to the temptation and then offered the fruit of this tree to Adam, who also ate of it. Both disobeyed God by listening to the arguments of Satan and ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  Both followed their will instead of God’s. Both lusted for that which God forbade them to partake.

In today’s Gospel taken from the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, Mary brings it to her Son’s attention that the wedding party has run out of wine. He says to her: what is that to me, woman. “My hour has not yet come.”  Jesus does not perform miracles until it is the Father’s will that he does so. He is totally obedient to the Father. Mary directs the servants to be obedient to her Son. She tells the servants to do whatever Jesus tells them to do. The disobedience of Adam and Eve is transformed by the obedience of Mary, the new Eve, and Jesus, the new Adam: Mary following the Spirit’s direction and Jesus following His Father’s directives.

Whose voice am I obeying?   To whose directives do I listen?