theROCK

Budget Time with God

Budget season has begun at St. Dominic. Department leaders, Finance Council, and the budget team engage in six weeks of discussion to determine how we invest your generous gifts to do what God has asked us all to do; go forth and make disciples. You can be assured we value and appreciate every dollar entrusted to us. We focus on our three strategic imperatives which are: forming and equipping disciples, a robust student ministry, and keeping Catholic education affordable.

We have many budgets in our lives. Budgets at work, family finances, and budgets of our time. We use a calendar for appointments, shuttling children, date nights, and gatherings to name a few. Wall calendars, color coded boards on the fridge, post-it notes, and phones are tools of the trade. I tell my wife, “if it isn’t in my phone, it doesn’t exist”.

The other day I looked at my Outlook calendar and knew something was missing. What have I not placed on it? Then it struck me. While I spend time in prayer, and have various roles at Mass on my calendar, I really haven’t budgeted time for God. It wasn’t in my phone. Did it not exist? Easy fix, create an appointment, make it repeat daily, and title it “spend time with God.” For me it is not a set time. Rather, it is a reminder every time I look at my calendar to do something about it.

As we approach Lent, add “time with God” to your calendar. Check in daily. Make Him exist in your life. We are ever thankful that Good Friday and Easter were on God’s calendar. Where would we be if He missed His appointed time? The least we can do is budget some time for Him.

Praying we all have a Blessed Lent.

A Still Small Voice

What do you hear when God speaks to you? What does the voice of God sound like to you? Do you know?

I frequently tell people stories that include phrases like: “and then God said to me…” or “I could feel the Holy Spirit nudging me…”. More often than not, if people say anything, they tell me God doesn’t speak to them. I know this to be impossible because there is absolutely nothing special about me. If God speaks to me, He speaks to you. He speaks to all of us.

I wonder if part of the problem is that we listen for His voice in the wrong places or ways. Like today’s first reading. The prophet Elijah is waiting “for the Lord to pass by” on Mount Horeb. Strong winds sweep the mountain, crushing stones.
But God is not in the wind. An earthquake shakes the very ground he stands on. But God is not in the earthquake. A fire breaks out upon the mountain, but God is not even in the fire. Instead, Elijah hears a whisper and bows before the Lord.

Don’t we often expect God’s voice to come to us in big, pronounced ways? Like our own burning bush moment or a James Earl Jones voiceover from the clouds. While God is certainly capable of big revelations like this, most often He speaks to us in that whisper—sometimes translated “a still, small voice” spoken in our hearts. We only need to be looking, listening, quiet, and calm enough to hear it.

 Instead of looking for God to set up a billboard for us, let us create that time and space to listen for His still, small voice speaking to us in our hearts.

Eyelash to Eyelash with God

I don’t know if you have ever been lost. I have had two terrifying experiences with being lost. One when I was a child. Our whole brood of eight children were being taken to downtown Chicago to visit Santa. We came on the train (called the “L”). It stops at the basement floor of Marshall Fields. Santa was on the fifth floor. We all piled into the elevator along with a boatload of people. I am closest to the doors. The doors open on the ground floor, many depart, including me. I was five years old. Next thing I know I am following the river of people out onto State Street. I am in the middle of the street with everyone else, when a firm hand grips my arm, my mother. Somehow, she noticed I had departed and leaving the others, she ran to get me. To this very day, I have a fear of being left.

My second experience was losing my youngest daughter for a very short time in the State fair creampuff building. Like me, she just wandered off into the next building. I quickly found her, but there were painful seconds of pure panic.

Today’s readings resurrected those feelings of being lost and how lost we would be without God. Hearing today’s words from Jesus that we are so valued, removes any fear. In a homily a while ago, I spoke of how Jesus reconciled us to the Father. The word reconcile comes from the Greek expression which means eyelash-to-eyelash. Jesus has brought us eyelash-to-eyelash with the Father. That is how deeply we are loved. Spend a little time this week alone with God. I don’t mean in prayer or even in contemplation. I mean spend a little time eyelash-to-eyelash with God, if you can. See if an intimacy this close doesn’t remove any fear you have, any fear about anything.