[1]If you're been
around microphones and live-stream cameras long enough, you've probably
experienced a “hot mic” moment. We hear
about them regularly in the news and on social media. Politicians, celebrities,
athletes, and coaches all have been caught by a hot mic often leading to the loss
of their position or job.
When Jesus asked his audience to imagine a
world in which their darkest thoughts and actions might be “brought to light,” he was posing a frightening—but highly
unlikely—hypothetical situation to dissuade them from hypocrisy. Today, the
omnipresence of cell phones and surveillance cameras has made it less and less
likely that our unsavory behavior can enjoy the cover of darkness.
St. Teresa of Jesus life’s beginning were
quite ordinary and often as conflicted as many of ours can be. As a child
Teresa found herself in the middle of conflicting views. Her rigidly honest and
pious father told her never to lie, but her mother, who loved romance novels to
the displeasure of her husband, told Teresa, who also liked the novels, not to
tell her father. Even when she entered her first convent, if there would have
been a hot mic or hidden camera, the behavior would challenge anyone’s faith
and vision of the “holy” nuns. For years Teresa hardly prayed at all “under the guise of humility” thinking as a
wicked sinner she didn't deserve to get favors from God. But turning away from
prayer was like “a baby turning
from its mother's breasts, what can be expected but death?” So, Teresa
sympathizes with those who have a difficult time in prayer, stating: “All the trials we endure cannot be compared to
these interior battles.”
In her books, especially the “Way of Perfection” and “The Interior
Castles” she analyzes and dissects mystical experiences the way a scientist
would. She never saw her gifts as rewards from God but the way he “chastised” her. She discovered the more love
she felt the harder it was to offend God. She writes, “The memory of the favor God has granted does
more to bring such a person back to God than all the infernal punishments
imaginable.”[2]
Ours is a time of turmoil, a time of reform,
and a time of liberation. We have in St. Teresa a challenging example, where promoters
of renewal, promoters of prayer, all have in Teresa a woman to reckon with, one
whom we can admire and imitate. A woman who learned to love and pray so that
she has no worry of the potential hot mic.
If we too kept before us the possibility of
a “hot mic” or the hidden camera that might expose us, wouldn’t we be motivated
to change our ways? More readily conscious in reconsidering our “private” gossip and slander? Willing to drop our
“secret” habits? Would we turn our backs on the
person in need?[3]
Prayer is a powerful mic check to ensure what comes through is our love of God. That our we wouldn’t need to worry if our private thoughts and actions are brought into light.
[1] Scripture (NABRE), Romans 1:16-25; Luke 11:37-41.
[2] Catholic Online, St. Teresa of Avila
[3] Weekday HomilyHelps, Homily Suggestion by Jim
Johnston.
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