A VOICE CRIES IN THE WILD

A Voice cries 

In the 

Wild

            Wilder

Wilderness 

The Voice of God

            In the wilderness of war

            In the desert desolation 

Of many a human life 

A Voice that speaks to the heart

A Voice that speaks of peace 

‘Console my people

Console them’ 

And no one hears at all

            Bewild

            Bewilder

            Bewildered 

‘O that today you would listen to His Voice

Harden not your hearts’ 

The voice in the wilderness, the unheard voice brought Neil Diamond’s ‘I Am, I Said’ to mind. This is not just my favourite song of all time but from the time of its release in 1971 when I was sixteen years old, it touched something nameless deep within me. It is the song that has power in it to send tears flowing down my face. Not tears of sadness but tears of resonance, recognition, as if the song knows something about me that I myself do not know. Something that is yet to be, that only God knows. That something that will be my ultimate fulfillment, the consummation. 

I am I said to no one there

And no one heard at all

Not even the chair 

Maura thought this was a silly thought. “How could a chair hear anyway?”she rightly and logically protested. Of course! And I couldn’t answer her but it somehow spoke to that which is unheard within me. 

We all know what it feels like not to be listened to, not to be heard. And it is hard enough to be heard anyway. And it is hard enough at time to have the words that express what needs to be heard. 

I hear a child trying to get the attention to a distracted parent, a child with something to say, a voice that meets with no response because parents have too much  on their minds or they simply want the mental break that their phone seems to be offering in the moment. I find myself wanting to shout at the parent, “would you ever listen to your child!” 

Of course, the wilderness also represents the silence in which the Voice of God is best heard. The wild silence that is true. 

It happens that the silence of morning is the place and time when I best hear and experience communication in its near purest form; the communication with God that prepares me for all communication of the day. It sadly doesn’t remain as pure as it could be but it does imbue all efforts at communication with something Godly. That doesn’t mean that everything has to be sweet, nice and agreeable. But it should be respectful, Godly. 

The listening and the speaking. The listening and the speaking that should be imbued with a profound respect for the other. I am often astonished that Christians don’t realize the level of respect that is required of us. Respect for each other that has its origins in our respect for God. It’s one of the things about meetings that upsets me most, that Christians take the liberty to speak very unchristian things to and about each other. 

We are of course at this time waiting and listening for the arrival of Jesus at Christmas. We accompany the pregnancy of Mary. We walk the journey with her and Joseph in spirit and in truth. We strive to. 

I have been accompanying the pregnancy of my niece Roisin and I see that she is in sync with the pregnancy of Mary, almost time perfect. How good it would be to be physically near her, to witness first hand how she looks, how she is feeling and to empathise with her in as much as a man can empathise with an expectant mother. 

But there is another mother here in the parish whose time is not so far off and I see how tired she is, how heavy, worn out. And the courage that keeps her going and brings her here to Mass every weekend. She models Roisin for me. And I feel specially close to Roisin in this pregnancy. Spiritually, emotionally. 

On December 8^th, Feast of the Immaculate Conception, the memory came in prayer of my heavily pregnant mother walking to Mass in the snow sixty nine years ago while she was heavily pregnant with me. I wrote about this recently. But on this day I had a sense that Roisin was also in sync with my mother. And that her baby is in sync with me! 

And how lovely it was for me that she gave birth to her son on December 12^th, Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. How lovely it was that I was in prayer at the time, without knowing the convergence of things. I knew Roisin was in labour and I prayed the Agony in the Garden decade of the Rosary for her. Then just as I was coming to the end of the mystery, the Angelus bell rang and it seemed to me that the Annunciation was speaking to the agony, that joy was breaking into it. 

This happened to me only once before when I was praying the Sorrowful Mysteries as I was going though a time a great distress. Then as now the Angelus rang and it was clear to me that God was asking me to  listen to joy in the midst of sorrow. The joy of God Himself. 

So, on this evening in December I finished my Holy Hour at 6.15pm and later heard that the new baby was born at 6.13pm. A clear reminder that God was communicating clearly and beautifully and that I had the grace to be present. This child will now be a voice that cries the authenticity and honesty that only he can bring to this world. 

What a wonderful Christmas gift. I can’t wait to get home in the new year to see this child and his wonderful mother for whom I have utmost admiration. To share with her and Enda and their delightful older son Rian whose life will now be changed in ways that he could never have imagined. 

God bless us all.