27^th Sunday in Ordinary Time (C); October 5, 2025

Hb 1:2-3; 2:3-4.  Ps 95.  2 Tm 1:6-8,13-14.  Lk 17:5-10

Deacon Jim McFadden

       The prophetHabakkuk is having a really bad day.  His life and that of is historical situation is falling apart with political intrigue, rampant idolatry that once again had engulfed the small kingdom of Judah, topped off by the invasion of the Chaldeans who captured Jerusalem.  Habakkuk is beside himself as he faces infidelity, violence, and destruction and he yells out to God: “I cry for help but you do not listen!  Why must I look at misery?  Why don’t you intervene?” (Hb 1:2-3).  This is a very brazen, in-your-face prayer as Habakkuk is virtually questioning the ways of God and he’s calling God into account for what’s happening in the world. 

         Like Habakkuk we’ve all been there to some degree as we can’t get through this life without experiencing profound loss or being impacted by the surrounding chaos within  our political, economic, and social domains.  So,  along with Habakkuk we cry out: do something; make things better; intervene! Habakkuk’s cry is lamenting God’s apparent indifference.  It seems that God has turned a deaf ear to his anguish.  God just doesn’t seem to be there, that he’s missing in action.  So, what grieves the prophet and us is the apparent absence of God’s tender care when we need him the most. 

         So, we yell out to God: “You’ve got to do something!  You’ve got to be God here and now!  Please make this situation better.  Oh, God, remove my pain and suffering!  Are you listening?  Are you there?”

         God finally does respond to Habakkuk because he is there; he is listening; he does care.  His response is not an easy answer or a quick-fix, but with a vision.  We’re not told what the vision is , but he’s instructed to write it down on tablets so that the message can be announced at the appointed time. 

         From the perspective of the Risen and Glorified Christ, we know that the appointed time has come and that the vision has been revealed to us, but’s probably not what we’ve been looking for.  It’s the foolish vision of the Cross that draws us into the mystery of Faith that Jesus speaks of in the Gospel. 

         This vision is simply the Paschal Mystery, which Jesus reveals not so much that we can spectate and applaud what he has done, but participate in the same mystery.  Death and Resurrection are  our path as well.

         The lesson for Habakkuk and for us is that God does speak to us and his voice come through in Sacred Scripture, in nature in which all creatures give God glory and praise, in our sacramental lives, and our ordinary experience.  We can hear the voice in Jesus through the Holy Spirit, who calls us to go into the Quiet and listen. As Jesus put it in Matthew’s Gospel: “…when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret” (Mt 6:6).  Along this line,  the Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner once said that “We’re all called to be mystics and if we don’t, we’ll destroy ourselves.”  Interior communion with the Lord demands habits of contemplative silence and waiting.  Habakkuk was too much in a rush; he wanted God to respond on his time-frame rather than God’s Kairos time.  All prayer forms should eventually lead to unitive consciousness because contemplation  is a wordless surrender to God’s presence in which he is most intimately present.

         The Trappist monk Thomas Merton wrote that “waiting in silence” was the doorway into unitive moments of wordless dialogue with God. In Contemplative Prayer (1969: pp. 122-123), he described contemplatives as those who forgo emphasizing their own agenda (which Habakkuk was doing) to becoming other directed in silent attention to another voice that might occasionally be “heard” in our hearts. 

         But, we have to wait.  Contemplative prayer is not result-oriented; it’s not expecting outcomes or transformations in our human domains.  It’s not even expecting “transformation  of darkness into light.”  Nothing is anticipated.  Are we ready for that?  Or, do we expect a reward, an outcome?  Sometimes we will experience the blessings of consolation being in God’s presence.  And, if that happens, be grateful, but don’t slide into spiritual consumerism.  In other words, love God no matter what happens to us.  As St. Bernard of Clairvaux wrote in his own moments of experiencing God’s presence: “How rare the visits, how brief the stay.”

         In the meantime we want to stick with our ordinary prayer forms of lectio divina, simple and devotional prayers such as the rosary, participating in the sacramental life especially the Eucharist and Reconciliation, and living Matthew 25 as we serve the least of Jesus’ brethren.  All of these prayer works are graced and lead us to an inner disposition of being still before the Lord.

         Finally, I’d like to end with a poem, Praying, by Mary Oliver who advises us not to seek the “blue iris” of profound insight into poetry or prayer.  Instead, she suggests that we pay attention to simple things like “weeds in a vacant lot, or a few small stones.”  Waiting upon the smaller things is just another mode of attention to the Holy Spirit’s visitations.  Our simple, personal prayers become the “doorway into thanks, and a silence in which / another voice may speak” (cf. Thirst, p. 38).

         May our Blessed Mother help us to wait in silence for the Spirit’s voice.  Amen.

Reflection Questions:

1. Can you relate to Habakkuk’s lament? Do you sometimes question the ways of God in your life?
2. How does God speak to you?  What is your prayer life like? Is it fruitful—drawing you closer to God?
3. Are you comfortable in the Silence?  Do you go into the Quiet?
4.