Monday Musings - My Winged Messengers

(Image source: Pixabay)

Whenever I have been blessed to spend time in the chapel at the retreat house at the Abbey of Genesee an assortment of birds always flies above and around the exterior of the chapel as I first begin to pray – carefree, chirping, doing what God created them to do, and trusting Him to provide for their needs.  After a time, they leave me as silence returns.

The presence of my feathered friends at these times of prayer is God’s way of reminding me that if He cares and provides for these little creatures, how much more certain I can be He will do so for me.

I can never be reminded of this truth enough.

However, during my most recent retreat there, God used a winged messenger in a totally different way. You see in all the years I have been coming to the Abbey, I have never heard any birds chirping while I was in in the main chapel in the monastery – located a mile from the retreat house. 

Silence reigns supreme in that Sacred space, since words – written or spoken – are not always necessary.  Our loving Lord is able to communicate with us in silence. It is for that reason that I have come to relish and enjoy these quiet times in His Presence. The peace and solitude serves as reminder for me to increase the frequency with which I sit in silence gazing at Him either in the exposed Monstrance or behind locked tabernacle doors when I am not on retreat.

But on the last day and my last Holy Hour of my most recent retreat there, I was gifted with the song of a single singing bird, penetrating through the soothing and comforting silence of the Monastery’s main chapel. That had never happened during prior visits. 

Since there are hundreds of acres of land surrounding the Monastery and its retreat house, what brought this particular bird to this specific spot to interrupt the sacred silence of this space on this one single occasion? And for that matter what brings the chirping birds to serenade me at the retreat house chapel every time I begin to pray there? 

God! 

Why would He bless me so? 

Because He wants me to understand He will bring me to where He wants me to be if I but trust Him and obey His promptings as do his little feathered friends.

Will I listen to Him?