A mysterious voice inside your heart Part 1

 

 

A mysterious voice inside your heart

Assisi, 1205. The young Francesco of Pietro Bernardone, a daredevil from a wealthy merchant family and who has behaved as a rich daredevil for most of his existence, is wandering in the Umbrian countryside. Since returning from his long imprisonment, one year in the enemy city of Perugia, and since his illness, he collapsed in a more subdued, perhaps melancholic mood. He does not find any more fun in his usual entertainments with friends: rather, he reads the Gospel, meditates, helps the poor, visits the lepers. In the countryside, now a small church in ruins stands before him - San Damiano, where no one celebrates the liturgy any more. The roof is broken, the walls in ruins. From the arch a crucifix painted on wood still hangs. Francis makes his way with difficulty through the rubble, gazes at the crucifix; then he kneels to pray intensely. While praying, he hears three times a voice inside, a male one, telling him: "Francis, go and repair my house which, as you see, is all in ruins". This episode is the fundamental vocation of St. Francis of Assisi, a call ("vocation" = "call" in Latin); the young man thinks of having to fix the small church in ruins, when in fact the meaning of the appeal is something else: it is explained by the frescoes by Giotto, where Pope Innocent III sees the humble friar supporting the crumbling Roman basilica of St. John Lateran , the "cathedral of Rome," the mother of all churches. Not only he has to repair San Damiano but the whole Church counts on St.Francis.

The Dream of Innocent III

Many wonder (even among my students) if God speaks to the heart of human beings. The answer, I think, is yes, but we must be ready to listen. On the occasion of the jubilee of Mercy, I want to offer here a meditation on that. When I was a girl, the priest of my parish (who died, although young, some years ago) told me that God speaks through our thoughts. It's true: there are sometimes a few thoughts, that take us by surprise and can not be absolutely ours (either because  they're much more hopeful and optimistic, either because opposed to our character, or because beyond our reach) but theat open new horizons: above all, they unexpectedly illuminate the truth. It seems then that someone (Someone) is suggesting them. Later I had to recognize that my pastor of the time, Father Massimo, was right: I had experiences like that hundreds of times, in everyday life and without any mystical pretension; and, like me, there are thousands of other Christians experiencing that. But it also happens that, just like St. Francis, normal people perceive, in the bottom of their heart, a mysterious voice (usually a male one), firm, authoritative, illuminating the reality in an unexpected way and indicating what to do. Usually, it is a call. I love to say it is the Head.September 10, 1946. Mother Teresa, then a nun of the Congregation of Loreto, catches the train to Darjeeling, India, for a course of spiritual exercises. Since some time she is meditating on the misery she sees in the streets of Calcutta, where a revolt is ongoing in those days. That night, she perceives what she will call the "call within a call":"I felt that the Lord was asking me to give up the quiet life within my religious congregation, to go out in the streets and serve the poor. It was an order. It was not a suggestion, nor an invitation or a proposal." "It was an order": we can understand that Mother Teresa heard that same voice, authoritative and firm, who ordered her to devote her life to the poorest of the poor. This is not a generic inspiration, but a precise order. The mysterious voice. The Head.

When the Head orders, you can not say no. Teresa Tomeo, a journalist and converted quite well known in the US media, told:"The transforming experience I had when I finally silenced myself, when I stopped talking and listened to what God was trying to say to me about my future, is worth repeating. It was towards the end of my secular television news career. I had become very frustrated with the news business. Since I was back in the Church with a passion, I believed that the Lord would continue to use me as a Christian in the secular media. My call, or so I thought at the time, was to shine the light of Christ in the newsroom. That wasn't working out very well, because the news business was becoming increasingly sensational and biased; the news executives weren't buying what I was selling and it was very confusing. One evening, as I was home preparing dinner, I cried out to God and asked Him to please show me what I was supposed to do with my life. It's important to note that there was no TV or radio on at the time. It was just me, my sniffles, and God. After I had a good crying and whining session, I quieted myself down and continued cooking dinner. That's when the words: "I can't use you in the secular media anymore" came to me. The words were so clear that they seemed like they were from an audible voice in the room".This is no hallucination (perceptions without an external object), even if, not being a psychiatrist, I am not able to prove it. Hallucinations, which, in truth, can also occur sporadically in healthy subjects, are normally related to psychopathology (one for all: schizophrenia, but not only) or extreme stress (such as prolonged deprivation of sleep), but I would insist on another fact. The perception of this mysterious voice possesses, for those who receive it, a motivational power, a fullness of meaning, a truth and a correspondence to the real context going far beyond hallucinations (usually divorced from reality). This voice shows a road, a road that still remains over the individual, but realistic and possible. Who hears this voice is invited to understand the core of his / her existence and to bet it and go further: to reach new, wider horizons. Moreover, there remains the question, whose answer is shrouded in mystery: who or what inspires this "voice"? A simple pathological condition or rather "Someone"? (to be continued)