Obedience is Listening
The key to all spirituality is listening. We come to know ourselves and God by listening to our hearts and souls in the silence of prayer. We can come to know a great deal about ourselves by listening to what our friends and even our enemies have to say about us. Bonds of love and friendship are built as we listen to one another and as we are heard by another. How good it feels to be heard! It is no wonder that at the heart of the Hebrew Scriptures –at the center of the Law, we find the word שְׁמַ֖ע shema. It simply means “hear.” Shema can also translate as “listen” “be heard” “understand” and has the expectation with it “to obey” to act upon what one hears. Consequently, shema in the Hebrew Bible always has an active element, because for the Jewish people words always have a reality behind them, an event or an action. Hence, the Hebrew understanding of a word is that it is based within an experience. It represents an event in time and not merely an abstract concept. God speaks to the Israelites and begins a relationship based on the covenant by giving them “the words upon my mouth” (Exod 34:27). God calls them back after they had been idolatrous, to center their worship of the LORD on the unifying sound of the spoken words of the LORD, the Ten Commandments, coming to them through the theophany on Mount Sinai.
Jesus himself, being a devout Jew understood this concept of the Hebrew Bible perfectly and taught it to the crowds in the form of the Parable of the Two Sons (Matt 21:28-32). In this parable the father gives an order for his sons to work in the vineyard. One son says “yes” I will go and does not go, because he is not really listening to the father’s request, nor does he want to be bothered with the burden of carrying out the work that was asked of him by his father. On the other hand the second son said “no” because he really heard what this would require of him, he relents and acts according to the father’s will, once he can accept the duty that was requested of him. At the end of the parable, Jesus sharply corrects the religious authorities who had come to question Jesus’ authority by saying, “tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you” (Matt 21:31), implying that the chief priests and elders have not really “heard” the word that God has spoken. Consequently, the religious leaders were not capable of carrying out God’s Will, nor leading others to do so.
The Great Shema
Central to Jewish life and worship is what is known as “The Great Shema.” This is the title given to the most significant passage in the Hebrew Bible for the Jewish people. In the Hebrew it appears as
שְׁמַ֖ע יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל יְהוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֵ֖ינוּ יְהוָ֥ה׀ אֶחָֽד׃
Commonly it is translated, “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone!” (Deut 6:4). The centrality of this verse can be seen in the actual print of the words in the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia. The last letter of the first and last word of this verse is enlarged to draw attention to the importance of this line of Sacred Scripture. This is the only verse in the whole Hebrew Bible where letters are enlarged as the ע and דare done here. This indicates the primacy of this verse in Jewish spirituality, because it expresses the first and greatest commandment to love God above all things. In the Hebrew Bible numbers have meaning, seven is a number of perfection, ten of completion and forty indicates special preparation. The number one points out what is fundamentally most important –what is first priority. In Deut 6:4 אֶחָֽד means “one.” אֶחָֽד also appears after the creation of light and separating it from the darkness. Genesis 1:5 states, “God called the light day, and the darkness God called night. And there was evening and there was morning, day one.” Thus, indicating the most fundamentally important aspect to creation was the creation and separation of light from the darkness. St. John the Evangelist perceives this important religious theme of light and darkness when he writes of Jesus, “the true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came to be through him, but the world did not know him” (Jn 1: 9-10). Thus, in The Great Shema are highlighted the words hear and one. Hear that God is first! God alone!
Blessed Mary of Jesus the Good Shepherd, understood the meaning of this passage well. In her own words she was often quoted as saying, “God Alone!” Likewise, she too, placed listening to God above all other virtues, as her motto in Latin was fiat voluntuas tua, or in English “your (God’s) will be done.” Blessed Mary’s spirituality was based on a very Jewish concept of spirituality that of the shema. Maybe this came from her countless hours of meditation on the Holy Family of Nazareth. Maybe the “Jewish-ness” of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, began to permeate her thinking. The Great Shema certainly fits her spirituality of placing God first in her life and doing whatever the Lord asked of her.
Listening, Discerning and Collaborating
In the founding of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth, Father Anthony Lechert, Blessed Mary’s spiritual director, had a listening approach to discern God’s Will regarding the first constitutions and the initial formation of the Sisters. He writes to Blessed Mary, “I wish you would communicate your ideas and your desires as to what you want stressed in the Constitutions, what you would like added. I repeat this: I desire nothing, except what Christ Himself wants. Therefore, when Christ inspires you with a good thought, I will agree with it.” The exchange between foundress and spiritual advisor (or priestly authority) is one of collaboration and mutual listening to Christ and each other in order to discern the Divine Will for the new congregation. Fr. Lechert on his part while discerning God’s will for the newly forming congregation listened to God’s word through Mother Mary and “he understood immediately that the structural motif of this new religious community was to be LOVE in all its aspects. From the very beginning God manifested Himself to our Mother as Love: “He is Love…” Mother Foundress wrote in her diary. God’s Will revealed through Fr. Lechert for Mother Mary and the charism of the congregation: “the design Christ has in regard to my soul, where He is leading me. Christ, Infinite Love, wishes to make me His child and wants to make me happy through love”
God reveals himself through people and events. In order to discern God’s Will one needs to learn how to listen for the voice of God through the ordinary events and people of everyday life. God spoke the fulfillment of his promise to Abraham through the three visitors who enjoyed Abraham’s hospitality (Gen 18: 1-14). God’s Will directed Joseph by way of the stranger at Shechem to save Egypt and Israel from starvation. Moses met God in the burning bush while he was carrying out his daily duty of shepherding the flocks of sheep of his father-in-law Jethro. Moses was attentive and watchful in his daily life, that is why “as he looked on, he was surprised to see…” (Exod 3:2). All people have the potential to see the surprise of God if each one is “looking” “watching” and “listening” for the Word of God. God did not give his revelation to Moses through his father-in-law who was a priest, but instead through nature in the unexpected intimate moment on the mountain in the wilderness. God met Moses through an ordinary bush and through fire, to give one of the greatest revelations the world has known. In the Scriptures, God usually visits his people with a message not by sending the religious authority to deliver it, but God is always present among the people he created, speaking words to the hearts that are ready to receive it. God’s revelation to Moses in the burning bush was his name. God’s identity was made known as אֶֽהְיֶ֖ה אֲשֶׁ֣ר אֶֽהְיֶ֑ה (Exod 3:14 WTT) “I Am Who I Am” or אֶֽהְיֶ֖ה (Exod 3:14 WTT) “I Am.” God’s name is the verb “to be,” because God IS the source of everything and God IS everywhere present in the world. The art of listening is the act of discerning God’s voice in the everyday events of life as we encounter people and live through events. Mother Mary and Fr. Lechert discerned in this way as they discussed the American mission, and how it was God’s Will that brought the Sisters to work in the schools and not for the Sisters to retreat to the contemplative life they once knew in Europe. Serving the immigrants of America was the manifestation of God’s Love in the world for the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth at that time, and when people follow the way of Love they find God’s Will in the world.
Love of God and Love of One Another
The revelation of God’s Will to both Mother Mary and Fr. Lechert is aligned with Jesus’ own exegesis on The Great Shema. Two major structural motifs in the spirit of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth are God Alone and Love. This is grounded clearly on Jesus’ core teaching about God’s Will in the world. Jesus identifies specifically The Great Shema as the first (אֶחָֽד) and greatest commandment, but then follows it with another that he instructs “is like it” (Matt 22: 39), which involves loving one another. He states, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments” (Matt 22: 34-40). In an array of 613 Jewish Laws, Jesus reduces the whole Law and the prophets to just these two as the way to living God’s Will on earth. Mother Mary wrote many times about God first and love for one another. The two work hand in hand, just as Jesus expressed that love of neighbor is “like” love of God above all things. Mother Mary writes in the original Constitutions, “The Congregation exists for the purpose of collaborating with Christ and His Church in establishing on earth the Kingdom of God’s Love…will strive to establish and nurture this Kingdom in its members and others…” During one of Mother Mary’s conferences she describes the mystery of Nazareth, “The Word Incarnate and Love itself came from Nazareth to fill the entire world. Hence, charity must always flourish and reign among us, children of the Holy Family.”
In conclusion, God’s Will is love: love of God and love of neighbor. One enters into this Divine Will by an attentive listening to God in various people, events, and inspirations of the heart in prayer. Moses heard this truth on Mt. Horeb (Deut 6: 4-5), Jesus taught love of God and one another in Jerusalem (Matt 22: 34-40), Mother Mary of Jesus the Good Shepherd and Fr. Anthony Lechert understood love to be the special purpose of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth. Knowing God’s Will is not a matter of the religious authorities giving an order, but like Mary and Joseph it requires a heart ready to act on the Word of God when it is revealed, through an angel, or a dream, or in the silence of prayer and in the events of daily living. As expressed in the letter to the Hebrews, “Indeed, the word of God is living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating even between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart. No creature is concealed from him, but everything is naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must render an account” (Heb 4:12-13). As the letter of the Hebrew’s states, the Word of God is more effective and penetrating than any person on earth. God is active in the lives of all God’s people, more able to reach the hidden depths of human events and hearts . The Word of God is alive in the world, let us listen with hearts attentive.
By Sister Trina Marie Ulrich, C.S.F.N
Dedicated to Mary of Nazareth, the one who listened, acted, and love the Word of God made flesh in her.
April 13, 2014