Where is your Favorite Place to listen to Jesus?

The title of the article actually read, "Where is your favorite place to listen to jazz?" but even with my reading glasses on, I read it the other way. Funny how that happens sometimes, funny how He does that. So, I started thinking about it. Whether or not we actually hear His voice, Jesus chooses to speak to us in a variety of ways; in myriad places - wherever and whenever He wills. Through sacred Scripture - His Word. Through the writings of saints and other holy people. Sometimes He uses the words or actions of others - family members, friends, or even strangers - to speak to us. Sometimes, He is silent, allowing only His Presence to proclaim His message of love and promise.

Where is my favorite place to listen to Him?

Is it in the Blessed Sacrament chapel where I go to meet Him for one hour each week?  It is there, before His Eucharistic Presence, where I adore, praise, petition, or simply be. Where I listen as He speaks ... not always in words, not always in whispers, but so, so often in His gentle gaze.

Is it in the confessional where I beg His pardon? Garbed in humility and in hope, I listen to His words of love, of mercy and forgiveness as my sins and imperfections melt away in His tender embrace. And I am grateful, always for the miracle of the sacrament, but for the words, too, God, the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of His Son has reconciled the world to Himself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins. Through the ministry of the Church may God give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins ...

My very favorite place? It is, decidedly, at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass; the celebration of the Eucharist, the source and summit of every Christian life, where I listen to His sacred words, while remembering  His command, Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. (John 6:54)

And then the words, the glorious words of consecration invoked at every Mass - anyone who has ears to hear ought to hear (Mark 4:23) ...

 

The day before he suffered he took bread in his sacred hands and looking up to heaven, to you, his almighty Father, he gave you thanks and praise. He broke the bread, gave it to his disciples, and said:

Take this all of you and eat it: this is my body, which will be given up for you.

When supper ended, he took the cup. Again he gave you thanks and praise, gave the cup to his disciples, and said:

Take this, all of you, and drink from it: this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for all men so that sins may be forgiven. Do this in memory of me.

A Holy Communion. Two becoming one. The bride and the Bridegroom. He empties himself and fills my famished soul. I take and I eat and I listen to the rhythm of His voice as our hearts beat as one.