How to Listen When God Is Speaking Quotes

“Spontaneous prayer, sincerely expressed, may be a very important way to speak to the Lord. However, the prayers that we have received from the Church are important ways of teaching us how to pray in theologically correct ways and may even be superior if our spontaneous prayers express untrue notions of God or our relationship to him.”
― Mitch Pacwa, How to Listen When God Is Speaking: A Guide for Modern-day Catholics

“One image for understanding this situation is to see the Holy Spirit as the photographer, and the evangelists and other inspired writers of the Old and New Testaments as different kinds of cameras. Cameras are available in many styles, from little disposable cameras to expensive 35 mm cameras with many lenses. Each type of camera reflects the truth of the scene, but its limits and strengths give a different type of photograph of that scene. So also with the divinely inspired writers of Scripture: Each of them tells the truth about what God shows them, but we would do well to understand how they look at things, their perspectives, and their limits.”
― Mitch Pacwa, How to Listen When God Is Speaking: A Guide for Modern-day Catholics

“than the death of God the Son on the cross. Each and every sin, no matter how heinous or shameful, can be forgiven. Therefore, by his suffering and death, Christ can reconcile everyone who believes in the power of that saving death, turns to him in faith, and asks for forgiveness for sins and reconciliation”
― Mitch Pacwa, How to Listen When God Is Speaking: A Guide for Modern-day Catholics

“A far greater crisis occurred while I was working with kids in a Chicago street gang in 1970. My friend Jimmy and I were attacked. One of the assailants beat me up. The other two made Jimmy kneel down, and then they shot him through the head. Jimmy was a former gang member who had turned his life around and was planning to get married. He had asked me to bring him and his girlfriend to a priest for confession just two weeks before he was killed. My efforts in the neighborhood came to a terrible end with his murder. For me, this tragedy was followed by nightly dreams of being chased by people trying to kill me. My attempts to use a method of dream analysis to overcome these nightmares merely drew me into the New Age movement for a while. I finally experienced an emotional healing while watching a movie in which a man was murdered in the same way as Jimmy. Following the movie I cried very bitterly, an emotional catharsis that ended the nightmares.”
― Mitch Pacwa, How to Listen When God Is Speaking: A Guide for Modern-day Catholics

“Another way to look at Christ's yoke is to remember that yokes are designed for two oxen, an image that can apply to Jesus and the person who accepts the call to take on his easy yoke—made easy because Jesus is the other ox pulling our burden with us. As is generally true of oxen, one is stronger than the other, and the stronger ox pulls the greater weight with the yoke. In the case of the vocational yoke Christ places upon us, he is the stronger ox, doing the heavy pulling through our spiritual life and vocational struggles, constantly at our side.”
― Mitch Pacwa, How to Listen When God Is Speaking: A Guide for Modern-day Catholics

“First and foremost in this struggle, we need an authentic prayer life that deepens our relationship with God and reconciles us to him. We must also have a desire to choose for our lives whatever gives the greater glory to God, which requires that we be “equal-minded”—happy with whatever good option that we discern our Lord most wants for our lives.”
― Mitch Pacwa, How to Listen When God Is Speaking: A Guide for Modern-day Catholics

“One aspect of developing spiritually is to learn how to distinguish our compulsive behavior, sins, emotional desires, drives, and inner movements from the peace that comes from God. Familiarity with God's gift of “peace that surpasses understanding” (Philippians 4:7) makes it possible to discern God's leading from our own inclinations, since what is not from God cannot convey a peace that lasts.”
― Mitch Pacwa, How to Listen When God Is Speaking: A Guide for Modern-day Catholics

“What is the process of discernment of God's will? Interior, personal discernment depends absolutely on those objective first principles, but in our relationship with God, discernment definitely takes a very subjective turn. We move from knowing those extremely important things about God to a personal level of knowing and loving God.”
― Mitch Pacwa, How to Listen When God Is Speaking: A Guide for Modern-day Catholics

“I n the last chapter, we described some basic principles underlying discernment of God's will—committing ourselves to God first, committing ourselves to getting to heaven, and accepting God's revelation on his terms. These basic principles belong on the objective side of the ledger in discernment. Perhaps we can understand them as the bones of a vertebrate animal—they provide the structure. But these bones need flesh, blood, a heart, and a brain. Unlike Dorothy's traveling companions in The Wizard of Oz, we already possess them.”
― Mitch Pacwa, How to Listen When God Is Speaking: A Guide for Modern-day Catholics

“D iscerning God's will is not an experience of warm and fuzzy feelings. Rather, it means recognizing and choosing things that are good in themselves and are the good things that God wants us to do. In our discernment process, we need balance, and we can achieve this by integrating our intellect, our will, and our emotions into our prayer and discernment. All three are necessary to discern God's will properly. Each one in isolation can be inadequate for the task.”
― Mitch Pacwa, How to Listen When God Is Speaking: A Guide for Modern-day Catholics

“death of God the Son on the cross. Each and every sin, no matter how heinous or shameful, can be forgiven. Therefore, by his suffering and death, Christ can reconcile everyone who believes in the power of that saving death, turns to him in faith, and asks for forgiveness”
― Mitch Pacwa, How to Listen When God Is Speaking: A Guide for Modern-day Catholics

“can't let that get in the way.” I returned to the guests celebrating my first Mass and enjoyed the rest of the party. Learning”
― Mitch Pacwa, How to Listen When God Is Speaking: A Guide for Modern-day Catholics

“Not even the lion is designated as the king of the beasts,”
― Mitch Pacwa, How to Listen When God Is Speaking: A Guide for Modern-day Catholics