Discover how God speaks to you (HOMILY FOR SATURDAY OF THE 5TH WEEK OF EASTER MAY 2023

HOMILY FOR SATURDAY OF THE 5TH WEEK OF EASTER

Acts 16:1-10; Ps.100; John 15:18-21

Discover how God speaks to you

From the first reading of today, we understand that in the missionary endeavours of the disciples and the early Christians, they remained open and docile to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. They allowed the Spirit of God to take the lead and direct them to where the gospel must be preached at every point in time. They never chose a place based on its viability or the generosity of the people but on the direction of the one who owns the mission.

While Paul and Timothy travelled through Phrygia and Galatia, they understood that the Holy Spirit did not want them to speak the word at Asia. When they attempted to go into Bithynia, they also understood that it was not the plan of God for them. But when Paul saw in a vision, a man of Macedonia, he understood that they Lord wanted them to go preach the gospel in Macedonia urgently. The point here is that the disciples had a manner of dialoguing with God that enabled them to understand God’s will for them each time.

This is something that each and every one of us need to discover and preserve. We need to discover how God speaks to us individually. We must discover our peculiar way of hearing from God and knowing his will for us. There are so many ways in which God speaks to man: dreams, visions, convictions, inspirations, and so on. When we develop a consistent prayer life, our union with God will become so cordial that we will discover how he speaks to each one of us.

The challenge some Christians have is that of imitation. Having discovered that God speaks to a person through dreams, they conclude that every dream is a message from God. This is not the case! God can be speaking to a person through dreams but to another through strong convictions. God who has created us individually, wants to dialogue with us personally. Like the early Christians, let us be more open to the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

If we do not discover how to know God’s will for us, many things will go wrong; we will make many mistakes. For this reason, Christ Jesus instructed the disciples to remain under close doors until the Spirit comes upon them. The Spirit was to give them direction. Today, let us ask the Lord to draw us so close to himself so that we may discover how he wants us to always hear from him.