Hearing the Word of God and Acting on It
- SISTER WENDY BECKETT
He can only speak in proportion to our desire to listen.
It makes me happy to know that you are journeying, with the sun of your former "career" sinking on one side and the pale moon of your future rising on the other, and that as you journey your deepest preoccupation is to listen to his voice: This is my Son, the Beloved, listen to him — God's most passionate desire, his sole command.
He can only speak in proportion to our desire to listen, and sometimes all we want to hear, all we are prepared to listen to, are the big major inspirations. Yet he is always speaking. Awareness of his voice in whatever happens depends, again, solely on desire. But equally, love, I don't think one hears "false voices" unless one chooses.
We may not hear all he says, we may shut our ears to his undertones, but nothing "false" in this — merely inadequate. As our love grows, our capacity to hear grows, and we learn that "obey" and "hear" are the same scriptural verb. You do know how to listen; and it does need exterior silence.
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Acknowledgement
Wendy Beckett. "Hearing the Word of God and Acting on It." excerpt from Spiritual Letters (London, U.K.: Bloomsbury Continuum, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. , 2013).
Reprinted with permission of the publisher, Bloomsbury Continuum. This excerpt appeared in Magnificat in September 2018.
The Author
Wendy Beckett, better known as Sister Wendy, is a British hermit, consecrated virgin, and art historian who became well known internationally during the 1990s when she presented a series of documentaries for the BBC on the history of art. Among her books are Spiritual Letters, Sister Wendy's Meditations on the Mysteries of our Faith, and Sister Wendy on Prayer.
