I know myself because I do wear hearing aids that whenever my hearing aids are digitally adjusted, it increases the range of the sounds I hear. I remember when I first got them how amazed I was to suddenly hear footfalls behind me; I'd forgotten that particular sound. And, beautifully, I could now hear the voices of my family gathered around me and understand what they were telling me.
Praying regularly empowers us to move to the second dwelling of the magnificent interior castle which is our soul. Here we begin to hear echoes of God's voice. St. Teresa of Avila tells us "His voice reaches us through words spoken by good people, through listening to spiritual talks, and reading sacred literature. God calls to us in countless little ways all the time. Through illnesses and suffering and through sorrow He calls to us. Through a truth glimpsed fleetingly in a state of prayer He calls to us. No matter how half-hearted such insights may be, God rejoices whenever we learn what He is trying to teach us."
Now we can hear God's footsteps behind us. We may have thought that we were alone on the lonely, perilous road of life, faced with tracks veering off to the left and right, wondering who can guide us. His footsteps sound behind us reminding us that we are never alone, that our Guide follows us, ready to speak up quietly if we're about to take the wrong turning.
When my hearing aids haven't been adjusted in awhile, or when they are dirty, I no longer can recognize who is speaking to me if a voice is coming from a distance. Or, I can't understand the words. Or I can't hear the person who is calling me at all. In this second dwelling, God is still at a distance, and so we can misunderstand His words, or think God is speaking to us when instead it is a poisonous serpent of deception. Or we may not hear God at all.
We get so caught up in our worldly affairs, what Teresa calls "buying and selling, grasping and indulging," that periods of time go by when we forget about God and so we miss when He is calling to us, or we misunderstand Him. We wander off the path and get caught by temptations: gossiping behind people's backs instead of working out differences face to face; arguments, with no apologies; careless flirting with a person who is wrong for us; over-obsession with our "looks." We hear preachers who are false prophets equating being well-off with being holy, and so we get caught up in the game of false prayer, praying for possessions when we should be asking God to teach us how to be good. We start prioritizing money and possessions as if they are more important than anything else. and so we don't live within our means and we forget that we should be charitable. Our so-called "friends" have skewed priorities. Our ambitions tempt us to cut corners, to use people like chess pieces to get ahead.
Then, suddenly, we remember to return to prayer, our hearing aids are switched back on, and God's Voice sounds clear and strong in our ears. Just as suddenly we realize that we've been on the wrong path, that we easily could have left the castle by following the sounds of the wrong voices. How embarrassed we are, how ashamed. We might have even fallen into serious mistakes, even sinned.
Since now we've begun to know Who God is and how much He loves us, we can spiritually suffer quite a bit, knowing our own betrayal of our Friend and Guide. We might even be tempted to give up the spiritual life, to leave the castle, since we think that we are obviously too weak to continue to get to know our souls' glorious inner life, and our Guest Who has chosen to dwell in the center of the castle of our souls.
But God, our faithful Lover, never forsakes us, never chooses to leave our souls. We may move forward awkwardly, keep on forgetting to put in our spiritual hearing aids, be temporarily deaf, but He keeps on speaking to us until we pray and can hear Him again, and we choose to listen to Him again. God loves us as much when we're deaf as He does when we can hear Him. God loves us as much on our worst days as He does on our best days.
The sweet, strong, clear voice of God, warm as honey, makes our world come into focus. How impermanent the world is! We remember the deaths of loved ones and friends; no one whom we love can remain with us here on earth forever. We can think of the deaths of legendary rock stars like Prince and David Bowie, and loved movie stars like Alan Rickman, and realize that their popularity, fame, houses, cars, and wealth mean nothing to them now that they are dead. And none of those passing things that so enrapture us here have any bearing on where and how we will spend eternity. Only our relationship with God here, our fervent desire to align our wills with God's Will here, has any bearing on how we will spend our eternal lives.
St. Teresa reminds us "The will shows the soul that this is a Lover who will never leave her, that He walks with her always, giving her life and being. The intellect steps in to help the soul understand that she can never hope to have a better friend as long as she lives. It shows the soul that the world is full of illusion, and that these pleasures that the spirit of evil is dangling before her come laden with trials and tribulations, with worries and contradictions. It points out that she will find neither security nor peace outside the castle. The soul has no need to go off visiting strange houses since her own is brimming with blessings; all she has to do is enjoy them."
Yet the call to regular prayer, to walk the corridors of our own souls, is not a call to leave the world behind. Paradoxically, the deeper we travel into our interior castles, the more deeply we enter into the "Real Life" of the world: into the struggle to bring about the coming of God's Kingdom. We leave behind the struggle for possessions and perks and power to walk with those who have no possessions, perks, or power.
In addition to the recent deaths of Prince, Bowie, and Rickman, the world has lost another outstanding figure: Fr. Daniel Berrigan, S.J., priest, prophet, poet; no matter whether you agreed with his politics or stances, you had to admire his strength of soul and fidelity to God. Fr. Matt Malone, S.J. says in his editorial in the May 16 edition of "America" magazine:
"Dan Berrigan gave his life to waging peace, standing up to the privileged and powerful. He opposed the Vietnam War with his body, heart, and soul. For many years, he was an outlaw, putting his ministry, indeed his very life at risk in order to bear witness to the radical call of the Prince of Peace. 'Faith is rarely where your head is at,' he once said.'Nor is it where your heart is at. Faith is where your ass is at.'"
Like Fr. Berrigan, our constant discipline of prayer will empower us to hear God's call to us more and more clearly, to recognize what relative, friend, neighbor, or stranger He is sending us to today, this minute. God's Voice may echo in a baby's cry, a bereaved friend's sobbing, the moan of a hospital patient, the laugh of an elderly relative we visit. We hear God's Voice asking us to see His Face in others and to return to the everyday world to be of service to others on the spiritual path, to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, counsel the doubtful, comfort the sorrowful. Mirabai Starr, translator of "The Interior Castle," says
"Far from rendering her incapable of performing ordinary tasks, the soul's experience of transformation in love creates an unshakable sanctuary of peace inside of her so that no matter what challenges life in the world may present, she can weather them joyfully, knowing that her Beloved dwells inside her and that He will never ever leave her."
But we always have to humbly and realistically remember how little and weak we are. Over and over we will forget to pray, we will lose those spiritual hearing aids, we will become temporarily deaf to the voice of God. But we mustn't give up; we must not turn around and walk out of the interior castle of our souls. God loves us as much when we're deaf as when we hear Him. God will always love us as much on our worst days as He does on our best days.