I used to hear God easily in prayer, but now it seems much harder, although sometimes when I am quiet, I still realize that He is there. Do you have any tips for how to hear Him easily once more?
It often happens that, following our deeper conversion to the life of faith, God speaks to us loudly and clearly to be sure that we can hear Him. As the great Catholic writer Flannery O’Connor once said, “For people who are half blind and deaf, you need to shout and use big pictures.”
Early on, the Lord will bestow upon us a strong sense of His presence and consolation to teach us how delightful it is to follow His will. St. Teresa notes that the early, discursive seasons of prayer are often marked by an active imagination and robust emotional engagement.
Yet as we grow closer to Him, God may grow “quieter” as He works more directly upon our desires, often in silence. When we are driving somewhere and do not know where we are going, we need to follow the bright screen and voice that tells us about every turn in the road. Once we know the route, we may drive in relative silence but are just as certain to reach the destination. Knowing the way has become part of who we are.
St. Teresa of Avila calls this the prayer of quiet. In this season of prayer, it becomes hard to focus on images or words in the way we once did, but we feel a settled peace and contentment by simply entering with silent attentiveness to the presence of God. This silent attentiveness is a very deep kind of prayer in which we quietly find our joy in Him and allow our desires to be conformed to His.
I once heard a story from a friend about his encounter with a very old nun. John had come to her convent to pray with a challenging situation that he was discerning. As she began speaking to him, she started giving him exactly the advice he needed. The next day he came back and asked if she had some kind of secret perception of his interior life. She replied that she had no idea, and she could not even really recall what she said. This nun is a perfect example of someone who is living very close to the Lord and who has allowed the Lord to work through her desires.
Father Charlie Archer is associate pastor of the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis.
