Meetings, meetings, and more meetings! Every time I open my email, I find a message about an upcoming meeting, a meeting that was cancelled, or a request to schedule a meeting. Every day the volunteers and friars gather after evening prayer in an informal meeting to share all the events for the coming days. Later today Tom and I travel to Mobay for an evangelization meeting and I have a meeting with bishop to discuss Tuesday’s meeting. There are all kinds of ways we gather together for learning, gathering information, and to make communal, congregational, ecclesial, organizational and even family decisions. Sometime, too, we meet to resolve differences, and to understand more deeply the movement of the Spirit in times of important matters to be addressed.
This is where we find the setting of our first reading. The early church gathers to figure out what is happening as the Spirit has sent apostles and disciples to the ends of the earth to share the Good News.
The issue now is the matter of Jews and Greeks (Gentiles) forming the community of believers. As Paul and Barnabas recall the words of the prophets and the saving grace of the Christ, Jesus, silence fell and the assembly listened. How important it is to discern and recognize the presence of the Spirit in the voices that speak. Perhaps the gathered reflect upon the words of Jesus.
Attending to the movements of the heart, and listening to the Spirit through prayer, is often referred to as discernment. We can experience this through individual or communal discernment processes. It is a path for clarity, a process to help make decisions, but most essentially, it is a way of living. It is a daily consciousness of being aware that the Spirit is alive and active within us, and in life. All we need to do is to be attentive. To be silent and to listen!
St. Francis was called to be silent and listen as he discerned God’s plan for him. As he knelt in the small chapel of St. Mary of the Angels outside the City of Assisi walls, he prayed, and perhaps we too pray:
Most high and glorious God,
Enlighten the darkness of my (our) heart,
Give us correct faith, certain hope and perfect charity.
Give me us insight and wisdom
So we may always discern your holy and true command.
God’s holy and true command? “Love one another! Remain in my love!” We are told this so that “God’s joy may be in us and our joy might be complete.”
May you enjoy your next meeting!