I don't know how it works, but I certainly appreciate the technology - noise cancellation in headphones. Touch a button, and distractions are closed out. I am able to hear clearly and solely that to which I choose to listen. The technology brings me to a new awareness of just how much noisy distractions stand in the way of focused and attentive listening.
This came to mind as I pondered the Gospel
passage given for Sunday’s mass commemorating the Transfiguration of the Lord.
At the centre of the narrative stands a command, arresting because of its
source: God the Father. As the divinity of Jesus shines forth in brilliant
radiance before his chosen disciples, the Father’s voice confirms the identity
of Jesus as His well-beloved Son and commands: “Listen to him.”
Indeed. Since Jesus is God’s Son, revealed on
the Mountain of the Transfiguration as having come from the Heavenly Father, as
being the fulfillment of the hopes of ancient Israel (symbolized in the
presence of Moses and Elijah), and as having mysteriously both a divine and
human nature, the question poses itself: why would we listen to anyone else??
St Peter summed it up best when he said to Jesus, “You have the words of
everlasting life” (Jn 6:68). There is no one else to whom we should go; no one
else to whom we must listen.
But, oh, the noise that distracts from the voice
of Christ! We need think only of the multiple and incessant anti-Gospel
messages that bombard us via the Internet, social media, and television and
radio programming to realize how difficult it is to heed the command of the
Father to listen to His Son. This awareness grows even more acute as we
consider the “noise” of persistent anxiety or worldly desires. We need noise
cancellation!
Yet, how do we do this? Is it possible to close
out all the distractions? Well, it certainly involves more than flicking a
button on a headset. What is required is a deliberate decision, made on a daily
basis, to be focused and attentive. This is what St Peter meant when he wrote,
“You will do well to be attentive to this [ie, the truth revealed in Christ] as
to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star
rises in your hearts.” (2 Pe 1:19) Practically speaking, this means
developing the habit of looking for moments in the day when I can give over all
the noise, all the worries and distractions, to Christ, and ask him for the
grace to be focused upon him and his Word. We could ask ourselves: what
distraction might I lay aside (watching a TV show, scrolling through tweets or
posts, or looking at yet one more Internet site) in order to read the Gospel of
the day? Focus upon a line or passage that stands out and allow it to
percolate. How does it speak to my heart? To what action is it calling me?
I worry that we easily getting caught up in the
trap of listening to any number of voices other than that of Christ. Let's
reverse this and engage noise cancellation, allowing into our attention the one
voice that leads to life: that of Jesus Christ.
