Hearing From The Lord

by Father Bob Bedard, CC


What, do you think, is the response of the average Catholic, when somebody asks the question, “So…what’s the Lord been saying to you lately?”

I’m afraid the most common reaction is a puzzled look. As a body of believers we’re not familiar with the notion that God speaks. But it’s not just a notion. It’s a reality, a truth.

When I received the grace of being baptized with the Holy Spirit, the most surprising revelation, to me, was the news that God wanted to run the Church. When that truth broke in on me, I was amazed. I wasn’t ready for it. What were they teaching us in the seminary if not how to run the Church? Who knows? But I knew now quickly that the Lord Himself wanted to be in charge and call the shots. We were to seek His word, His word of wisdom. He would convey it to us and then help us to carry it out.

The Lord’s desire to run things extends to the lives of individual people and families. Does this mean He wants to run everything? Actually, yes. He wants us to be little more than puppets? Not at all. Was Jesus just an automaton? No! But He knew that the Father, who alone can see the future, has a specific will in every important situation. He Himself chose His Father’s will in all things. In the Garden of Olives, He said: “Not my will, O Father, but your will be done”. He likewise said: “My food is to do the will of my Father”. And again, ( Jn 5:19), Jesus says: “The Son does only what He sees the Father doing.” The Father simply wants us to choose freely to do His will in all significant things. He won’t force us to do it. He will merely encourage us in that direction. As we choose His will, we are blessed and, likely, so are many others. The smartest decision we can make, is always, to do the Father’s will in all things. This will, of course, involve each of us in consulting Him frequently.

Yet people will ask: “Does He want to dictate every little thing in our lives?” No, not really. That would be carrying it much too far. He’s given us common sense to take care of such things. But in every choice we could call significant, He has a specific will, a will that He wants us to undertake and can convey to us.

Consulting the Lord in order to catch His word in particular situations is one of the most basic of all the instructions the Lord has left with us. To the degree that we are faithful to the calls He has placed before us, to that degree can we expect Him to bless what we’re doing.

One of the clearest memories I have in this regard dates back about 13-14 years when we were approached by the board of Governors of the television program, “Food for Life”. They wanted us to take on the weekly telecast. The founder, the late Father Bob MacDougall, felt the Lord was taking him out of the picture there and his discernment, he said, pointed specifically to the Companions of the Cross.

In those days, our council was not elected as it is now, but comprised all of the community’s priests. We met every two weeks. When I presented the question first, I was very leery of our getting involved, was inclined to say “no”, but, at the same time, had a lingering sense in the back of my mind that God might just, in fact, want us there. I went around the circle and asked for a preliminary feeling from the men. All were negative. I urged further prayer. “We’ll take it up again in two weeks,” I said.

The following meeting, although every man was still negative, there seemed much more openness to the idea. I asked for two more weeks of discernment. We prayed some more. Two weeks later, all were positive. We took over “Food for Life” and continue with it to this day. It was quite a remarkable experience.

Seeking the Lord’s word is a standard procedure in the Scriptures. And, in our day, we believe the Lord still wants to lead His people that way. What is told again and again in the Old Testament is continued in the same way in the New Testament. Barnabas brought Saul to Antioch, because something was happening there that the Church had not yet experienced – the conversion of both Jews and Gentiles (non-Jews) to Christ in equal large numbers. The leaders in Jerusalem (Peter, James, Andrew etc.) chose Barnabas to go north to check it out. As the latter met and prayed with Saul and the church in Antioch, the word of the Lord began to manifest itself through prophetic utterance. The most startling example is the word of God coming to the believers “while they were celebrating the Liturgy of the Lord” (A13).

There are, it’s to be expected, some conditions we have to fulfill in order to catch the Lord’s word for our lives.

First of all, we have to believe it. We have to cast away all the skeptical words that are thrown at us by the world. We’ve all heard them: “Are you crazy? Imagine!. God talks to us! Ridiculous!”

We should as well be in a state of repentance, better known as the state of grace. If there is something seriously out of order in my life, the Lord simply can’t get through to me. As well, we have to want the Lord’s word. It’s amazing how many people are afraid of what God might say. And, obviously, we have to ask. Too many people hold themselves in such low esteem that they feel unworthy of God’s intervention in their lives. Thus: “Oh, God would never speak to me. You’d have to be holy for Him to do that”. That’s not correct; but that’s where most people are at.

The most important condition for hearing from the Lord is what we could call abandonment to His will. This, in fact, is the key. Without it, there is little likelihood we’ll hear from Him at all. I have to tell the Lord I’ll do what He wants no matter what it is before I even know it. This is what stops a lot of people. There’s a fear many have of God, a lack of trust, actually.

The classis example that comes to mind here is the young chap, 20 or so, who had come to a gathering of young adults early in my years at St. Mary’s. A very likeable young guy, a good athlete, not noted for a lot of church attendance.

The young leader of the group was getting right down to business with the attendees, challenging them to turn their whole lives over to Christ. Anyone doing so would quickly receive hands-on prayer.

The Lord tends to honour such a response often in a very concrete manner and without a lot of delay. The night in question saw the 20 year old up in my office in a hurry. The Lord had touched him so powerfully that he was shaking. The dialogue between him and me follows:

He – “This is amazing, Father, I didn’t know God was so close and real. What do
I do to grow in my relationship with Him?” He was just bubbling over
and ready to charge. I thought he was going to tear the place down brick
by brick.

I – “Calm down. That’s the first thing to do. Just calm down. The second thing
is to tell the Lord you’ll do absolutely anything He wants you to do.”

He – “Oh yeah! I’ll do anything for Him. All He’s got to do is name it.” Then he
stopped short. “But…but what if He wants me to be a priest?”

I – “So what? I’m a priest. Is there something the matter with that?”

He – “But I don’t want to be a priest. I want to get married and have my own
family.

The crux of the situation is precisely that. God will only ask us to do something, we can do, something that’s best for us. The fact that I want deeply to do something else is a good sign that’s what He wants. There’s nothing complicated about it. It’s not a command from him. It’s a call.

If all of us would only follow the Lord’s calls upon our lives, what a different place this world would be. How different the Church would be! How different my family, my parish, my own life would be!

It’s very simple. Just follow the Lord. Do what He asks. Everything falls into place after that.

The Power of the Holy Spirit

by Father Bob Bedard, CC


Back in March of 1975, the Lord gave me a very special gift. It was a gift of personal prayer. It changed my life.

As a boy, as an adolescent, as a young man, I was very lazy. The dirtiest four letter word in the English language for me was “work”.. I never had to be coaxed to take it easy. One of my father’s favourite maxims – “Anything worth doing, is worth doing well” - was a continual challenge, I found, a challenge I became very skilled at ducking.

Ordination changed that. From being a dedicated drone, I galvanized into action. Although not ever being a fast mover, I became very purposeful. The job that had to be done got done. Although never a whirl wind, I became a very dedicated grinder. Maybe the early lessons from my dad had begun to sink in.

Quickly enough, my reputation grew as a very dependable guy. As I moved from parish ministry to the task of establishing, with the help of a few young priests a new high school from scratch. I began to take on the tasks that nobody else seemed interested in taking on. That is how I got into basketball. I took on the coach’s job with the juniors because nobody else would do it. I took over the program of Canadian History when a need in that department became clearly evident. I became principal at 32 and rector a year later. I took on the grade XIII Religion program as well. All of the above jobs needed some shoring up when I when I stepped in, as well large portions of just plain hard work.

I guess I had become a prime example of somebody who was caught up in the heresy of works. Anything could be accomplished by human effort, aided and abetted, of course, by the grace of God.

It took my assignment as pastor of St. Mary’s for the Lord to begin teaching me just what the blend should be between human effort and the Holy Spirit. His clear word to me was that He Himself not only had all the plans for the parish, but also that the Holy Spirit would do almost all of the work. That successfully disabused me once and for all about the works heresy. With the growth of the CCs and the growth of the parish itself, I couldn’t handle everything myself anyway. It was in desperation, more than anything else, that prompted me to turn everything over to the Lord.

I was simply to surrender all the control buttons to the Lord, take my orders from Him and carry them out while He remained in the control room sending out the messages. I wound up simply running a message centre, receiving and sending out His instructions and appointing ministry folks to carry out His wishes. It’s an amazing system. Since it works beautifully, I recommend it to absolutely everybody.

I should have known. Earlier, I feel the Lord had revealed to me that the Holy Spirit is the One who gets things done. He has the power to accomplish things, anything in fact. Not only difficult things, but impossible things as well. There is no need whatever for us to quail before difficult assignments from Him.

The power of the Holy Spirit is precisely what the Church needs in our day. My contention has been that the power (or grace?) of the Holy Spirit admits of degrees. In that way I maintain it took a greater measure of power for God to bring Mary Magdalen to conversion than it did to raise Lazarus from the dead. In fact, a conversion of a person from no faith at all to a lively relationship with the Lord wherein he falls madly in love with God requires a greater degree of grace than just about any thing else.

The Holy Spirit is not worn out. He has not retired. He is ready to swing into action if only we will give the invitation. The age of the Holy Spirit, heralded regularly by the popes of our day, is still on the go. Take heart, O Catholic people. The victory is in sight.