Called

I have spent a lifetime behaving as my younger sister behaved as a small child – hiding beneath the dining room table when my Eternal Parent is calling. 

Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise (Somenico Passignano)

One of the most important things that a parent can teacher their children is to come when they are called.

I remember when my children were very little, I spent countless hours calling out to them and responding to myself, “Where are you?”  I would call, and then, so that they would learn to respond to me, I would say, “I am here, Mum.”  I taught them this for a few reasons.  One reason is of course because I taught them everything and so it was critical for me to include normal social interactions in what I taught my children.  Another reason was because I remembered being a young child and one of my sisters decided it would be a fun game to hide from my mother.  For thirty minutes, my poor mother ran through the house and onto the street calling for my younger sister – who was probably only a year or two old at the time.  That sister had decided that it would be fun to hide beneath the dining table and stay completely silent and still so that my mother would “play” this lovely new game.  I remember feeling my mother’s fear during that search.  I remember seeing that she called loudly and checked and double checked the house and the street.  And I remember that when she finally found my sister, she immediately turned her back on the child and ignored her – pretending that she did not see her – so that my sister would never do such a thing again.

You see, it is a frightening thing for a mother to lose her child.  It is even more frightening when there is a chance that the child is lost or in danger.

And I have been thinking about that today.  You see, God is my Eternal Parent, and He has spent my lifetime teaching me to answer when He calls me.

Just as I sometimes call my children to given them an instruction and other times, I call them to help them or direct them or even to be of service to them, so too does God call me.

Sometimes, He calls me by interrupting the thing that I am currently working on – it does not work out or gets in my own way or causes me to become distracted from the important things and then those things fail.  But other times, He calls with a whisper.

The great Saints can hear those whispers.

Perhaps that is the mark of a Saint – to be able to hear God in the whispers in their hearts – to be perceptive to the calling of God and His whispered instructions to them?

Perhaps this is why so many of our Catholic hymns focus on God calling us or our response to God’s call?

And it seems to me, that I have spent a lifetime behaving as my younger sister behaved as a small child – hiding beneath the dining room table when my Eternal Parent is calling.  Silly me – what a terrible waste.  Silly silly me…

For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.