Hearing God Amid the Noise
Imagine being a Catholic doctor pressed into service for a Communist army. This is what happened to Pere Tarres, a Catalonian doctor from Barcelona who served during the Spanish Civil War. Ideologically, he did not align with the army, but he could still live out his fundamental vocation of healing. He recorded his thoughts and reflections in Mi Diario de Guerra. Beyond chronicling the war, he consistently reflects on how God was speaking even amid chaos, uncertainty, and suffering. At the recent youth prayer vigil in Madrid, Pope Leo exhorted the young people to learn to listen to God’s voice. Today’s liturgy helps us home in on God’s voice.
When the people of Israel fled Egypt into the desert, God gave them a message to show his special love for them.
If you hearken to my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my special possession, dearer to me than all other people, though all the earth is mine (Ex. 19:5).
God spoke through Moses to Israel in the desert. Today, God still speaks to his people, though often through different means: prayer, Scripture, the Church, and the events of daily life. We need silence, confidence in God, and God’s Word.
Silence
If we are to hear God’s voice, we must actively choose which voices deserve our attention and which only create static in our souls. The habit of silence helps us to discern what is true from what is false. “When we seek silence, we choose what not to listen to and which noises not to let distract us” (Pope Leo XIV, 6 June 2026). The more experience we have, the more we need to learn what is helpful and what is detrimental to our inner peace.
We must be careful to seek truth. “It is in silence that we come to understand that ideologies pass away, while the truth always remains” (Pope Leo XIV, 6 June 2026). When we come to recognize the value of truth, we begin to realize how much of current society revolves around ideologies that are not ultimately life-giving. The more we recognize that truth leads us to God, the more we grow in our confidence and hope in him.
Confidence in God
We need to cultivate confidence in God. Be sure that God knows your voice. Before we learn to recognize God’s voice, it helps to remember that he already knows ours. Prayer is not an attempt to gain God’s attention; it is a response to the loving attention he already gives us. How wonderful it is to know that God knows who we are and what we desire most deeply. “Our inner voice becomes prayer, praise, and supplication when we direct it to the one who alone can hear it” (Pope Leo XIV, 6 June 2026). So often, we can feel alone and isolated, but God always wants to know what is on our hearts. Even when we fail often, God still cares for us. St. Paul marveled at the fact that God loves us even from before the time of our conversion.
But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us (Rm. 5:8).
Christ died for us precisely because of our sins. Far from ostracizing us for our moral failings, Jesus invites us into a personal relationship with him. One of the primary ways he speaks to us in that relationship is through Sacred Scripture.
Listening to the Word
We must listen to the Word. God reveals himself to man through Sacred Scripture. “The Word of God is alive because it is Jesus Christ, whose voice continues to resound in the Church, his Body” (Pope Leo XIV, 6 June 2026). We hear his words through the Church, which extends his revelation through time. We run the risk of being spiritually illiterate if we do not know the Word of God. We can engage in culture wars and discussions, but if we do not know Christ through the Word, we risk losing sight of what is truly important.
The life of Pere Tarres shows that we do not have to be living in a perfect time or under perfect circumstances to live for God. We can learn to listen to God’s voice in whatever circumstances God permits in our lives. God does not promise to give us an easy time during this life. But he can give us his grace so that we develop the virtue needed to give witness to him in a world desperately in need. Spend five minutes every day this week in silence before the Lord and try to discern between ideology and truth in the news that you receive. If you grow daily in your ability to listen to God’s voice, you will discover that he has been speaking all along, inviting you to be a witness of his love and grace in the world.