Sometimes the best homilies are the simplest. Truth is presented with clarity and practicality. Words are spoken from the heart. Most importantly, you remember what was said. Today was one of those homilies, given by one of my favourite priests. I hope he doesn’t mind if I paraphrase it below.
Do not be anxious!
How easy it is to worry. Life gives us solid material each day – some big, some small. If we have the good sense to take our worries to prayer, we often begin by listing off our intentions. We name our worries. We name loved ones and friends. We name crises and disasters both near and far. We give words to our fears and ask God to answer our prayers.
AMEN!
And our prayer is ended. But, is it?
Prayer is a conversation. Too often, we do all the talking then end our conversation with AMEN! But, did we allow God time to answer? Did we meditate?
This was, perhaps, one of the best definitions I’ve heard for meditation.
Meditation is giving God time to answer us!
We need to stop talking and sit in the stillness.
We need to Listen.
We need to be still and know that God is God, ready to speak to us in the quiet of our hearts, even if our hearts are not quiet.
Silence is even more important if our hearts are restless or screaming with anxiety and worry. I find meditation the hardest during these dark moments. I want to turn my brain off. Turn away from the worries that haunt my days, and keep me up at nights. I’m afraid of what I will face if I sit in the stillness.
Meditation is giving God time to answer us.
A simple message. Why do we make it so hard to do?
catholic dialogue 
But God often speaks to us through others. So, it’s good to also listen to those whom we trust.
Excellent point Alexandra. Thank you!
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Too often and too much we identify “listening” with hearing and even remembering to the point of being able to regurgitate (not to mention “obeying”, as in the parental and hierarchal – “Did you not hear what I said!”). I often think of Jesus speaking. “Whom toom” was he speaking? I can’t help but think that he was speaking to the ordinary Jo and Josephine who simply took him at his word – or not. And, what did he talk about? As you suggest from your priest: ‘Don’t worry so much. Be good. Do good. Be better and do more.
I love a theological concept, esotericism, dissecting a “given” to its logical implications. So does Jesus, I presume. But what He really loves is the, no, not the “everybody”, but rather the “each” and the doing good, being good, loving, caring, feeding. I think that he has a problem with imposing the parsing, the esotericism, the dissecting into consequentials of observance into absolutes rather than into the poetry of listening.