Listen to Jesus | Contemplata Ep 57 | Fr. James Brent, O.P.

Learn about how we can grow close to God in Episode 57 of Contemplata, Listen to Jesus. Through the example of the Saints like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, we can discover new ways to be receptive to the voice of Jesus Christ. 

Join Fr. James Brent, O.P., as he explains how we can listen to Jesus ever more attentively. 

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Transcript

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The key is looking at Jesus, listening to Jesus, focusing on Jesus. Brothers and sisters, welcome back to Contemplata, a podcast for contemplative souls. It's time for us now to return to the original theme that started us off in the first episode, the recovery of the heart. God has created every human being in his image and likeness. This is something we need to think about more and more. First of all, you and I have been created. We are creatures of God. We often don't think of ourselves as creatures. We think of ourselves as self-sufficient and self-reliant, and we go through life thinking everything is on us. But the truth is that you and I are creatures. And not only did God create us once upon a time in the past, but we are an ongoing creation. God is always at work in our lives and our bodies and our souls, in the depths of our hearts, to fashion us and to refashion us until we grow into his likeness more and more, till we become a living icon of the Most High God. Now, how does this happen? It takes place principally and above all in the depths of our hearts. That's where you and I grow into the likeness of God. And how do we grow into his likeness? Well, we come to know him. We come to know him by the light of his grace. And the more we come to know the living God, the more his own reflection takes shape in our hearts. The more we begin to reflect his light and grow in his love. As we come to know him, the knowledge of God, who is goodness itself, the God who is truth itself, that knowledge sets our hearts on fire with love. And as we come to know the living God in the depths of our hearts more and more, and as our hearts are set on fire with love for Him, then our hearts become a living reflection of the Most High God Himself. Every one of us is in need of a deep healing of our hearts from the effects of the fall, from the effects of personal sin. And as we walk this journey of the Christian life, as we walk the road of metanoia, our mind, our heart, is transformed into the likeness of God more and more. All of this takes place by his grace, of course. All of this takes place because our Lord Jesus Christ has come into this world, he has gone to the cross, he has freely opened wide his arms on the cross, he has taken the nails for you and for me. He died for us. Christ died for us. And he also rose for us by the power of God. And as the living one now, the Lord Jesus, stands before the Father, He prays for us to receive the Holy Spirit. And as you and I receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, first in our baptism, but really in all the sacraments of the Church and in the whole life of the Church, as we receive the grace of the Holy Spirit and walk the road of Metanoia more and more, gradually, slowly, we come to experience a recovery of our hearts and a recovery of the eyes of our hearts, so that we can come to know the living God more and more, and our hearts can be set on fire with love for him more and more, and we can grow into his likeness. This is why God created us. It's why he created us in his image and likeness, so that we might become like him. And most of all, in the depths of our hearts it becomes possible for us to live in a friendship with the Most High God, in a deep communion with him, and to walk in his friendship and in his love more and more, aware of that, more and more all of our days. The great question we always ask is how? How do you and I come to grow into his likeness more and more? How do we really walk the road of metanoia and receive the grace of the Holy Spirit and are become transformed in the depths of our hearts and receive the healing and the recovery of our hearts from all of the effects of our sins? That's the great question. In the first chapter of the Gospel of John, Saint John the Baptist is in the desert preaching and baptizing, and he points out the Lamb of God. And after he does so, two of his own disciples go following after Jesus. And Jesus turns around and says to them, What do you seek? They go and they stay with him that day, and there takes place between them and Jesus a great conversation. The conversation is not recorded in the Gospel of John, but surely you and I want to know what they talk about? How did the Lord converse with them? What did he say? What did they hear? What did they ask him? How wonderful it would be for you and I to partake in a conversation with the Lord like that. When Saint Augustine is commenting on this passage from the Gospel of John, he lays down a beautiful instruction for our spiritual lives. Saint Augustine says, Let us too build in our hearts a home where he may come and teach us and converse with us. That's a marvelous instruction from Saint Augustine, and Saint Thomas Aquinas quotes that instruction from Augustine in his own commentary on the Gospel of John. We're going to take that as kind of a guiding principle for us. Let us build in our hearts a home where He can come and teach us and converse with us, so we can truly become disciples of the Lord Jesus. As we fashion a home in our hearts and learn to listen to Him and listen to His instruction and converse with the Lord, live in a dialogue with Him more and more, then the transformation and the recovery and the healing of our hearts will take place more and more. So then the question becomes, how do you and I build a home in our hearts where the Lord Jesus can come and teach us and converse with us? Well, there's many things we can do. We all need time in our lives for prayer. We all need to step back from the busyness of our practical affairs and really devote time for God every day to the best of our abilities. We also need to have silence, especially during our time of prayer. We need outward silence, but we also need a kind of inward silence that will allow us to really listen to the Lord. We also need to pay attention to the Lord. We all tend to become very distracted in our prayer. We need that vigilance, that guarding of our heart, which we have spoken of in previous episodes. We need vigilance in order to fix our gaze upon Jesus and really enter into a state of listening to Him. In the Byzantine liturgy, there's a marvelous saying before the various readings, where they say, Wisdom be attentive. That's who Jesus is. Jesus is the wisdom of God, and the wisdom of God comes to us in all the various passages of Scripture, in one way or another, and you and I need to be attentive. We need to pay attention to His message, to His Word, to His lessons that come to us through sacred Scripture. And as we step back from our busyness and dedicate time to prayer, as we learn to quiet ourselves both outwardly and inwardly, and as we pay attention more and more to the Lord, we begin to build a home for Him in our hearts where He can come and teach us and converse with us. But there's one thing in particular we need to do above all in order to build this home in our hearts where we can learn from the Lord Jesus Himself. What we need is faith. Faith purifies the heart, Scripture says. And as you and I grow in our faith, our hearts are purified. Slowly, slowly, gradually over time, we receive a cleansing and a purification of our hearts. So, in order to help all of us grow in faith and learn to listen to the Lord more and more, we're going to dedicate a whole set of episodes to the person of Jesus Christ and his various titles. And we're just going to spend some time meditating on the person of Jesus. Who is Jesus? What has Jesus done for us? What are his characteristics? What are his activities? What is he like? We're going to lay out a kind of portrait of Jesus Christ over the course of many episodes. And as we meditate on the person of Jesus Christ more and more over the course of these many episodes, our hope is that our own hearts will grow in union with Him, and each one of us will develop in our hearts a certain home where Jesus can come, live with us, teach us, and converse with us. And this is how you and I can walk the road of Metanoia, receive the recovery of our hearts, and learn to become more and more like God, set on fire with God's own love in the depths of our hearts. The key is looking at Jesus, listening to Jesus, focusing on Jesus. And that's what we'll be doing over the next several episodes. Thank you for listening to this episode of Contemplata. Be sure to like, subscribe, and share with your friends wherever you listen to podcasts.