Friday 12 June

Today is Friday the 12 June, in the Tenth Week of Ordinary Time.

Luke Parker sings, ‘In Quietness’. Become aware of your surroundings now… As you meet with God now, this place becomes a sacred place…try and listen for the still, small voice of God as you begin to pray…

Today’s reading is from the First Book of Kings.

1 Kings 19: 9, 11-13

When Elijah reached Horeb, the mountain of God, he went into the cave and spent the night in it.  Then he was told, "Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by." Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake;  and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence.  When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.

The great prophet, Elijah, was a man of God.  He had gone up the holy mountain to be closer to God in solitude.  Now surely if God is going to appear it should be in a suitably dramatic way -  a tornado, an earthquake, a great forest fire?  But because he was a man of God, Elijah was aware of God’s presence, not in such dramatic events, but in peaceful silence.

Have you ever sensed the presence of God?  Have you ever felt a sense of being held, of being loved?

If you have, go back to that feeling and remember it again. Live it again. If you have never felt such a presence, ask God for a sense of that presence.

Listen again to the reading and if you can, be quiet and try and get in touch with that ‘sheer silence’ within, that ‘still small voice’. Like Elijah, most of us need to go from time to time into that cave on the mountain of God, that place of quiet. 

If you can make that moment now, and that place here, what do you want to say to God?