The Lord tells me not to babble like the pagans, as though heaven were hard of hearing or God impressed by verbosity. He gives me instead a prayer so short that it could fit inside a breath and so vast that it contains eternity: Our Father.
Memorial in the Grotto of St. Mary’s Cathedral. The inscription says: “In memory of the death of innocence of the victims of clergy sexual abuse. When innocence dies…a life stops. It is essential that we never forget.”
Faces and voices are sacred. God, who created us in his image and likeness, gave them to us when he called us to life through the Word he addressed to us. This Word resounded down the centuries through the voices of the prophets, and then became flesh in the fullness of time. We too have heard and seen this Word (cf. 1 Jn 1:1-3) — in which God communicates his very self to us — because it has been made known to us in the voice and face of Jesus, the Son of God.
As I reflect on hope — the Centennial pillar for February, when I am tempted to reduce prayer to anxious babbleabout our “serious mistake“, do I remember that my face and voice are sacred because they were first called into being by the Word, and that hope is not found in multiplying my words but in trusting the Face of Christ who has already spoken His love over me?
2. Meditatio
Every evening at The Glenn, just before sunset, the world breaks into what can only be described as a barnyard litany. The pigs squeal as if famine were imminent. The sheep bleat with theatrical urgency. The hens cluck as though I had personally offended their dignity. The dogs bark, the cat meows, and all of creation rehearses its anxieties in chorus.
They have pasture. They have feeders. They have water. And yet, the moment they see me, the babble begins.
It would almost be logical if they protested my absence. But they protest my presence. They cry most loudly precisely when I am walking toward them with food in my hands.
And here I am in the Gospel, feeling uncomfortably porcine.
Is my prayer not often the same? I approach God only when I want something, and I announce my needs as if He were unaware of them. I recite my concerns in long paragraphs, convinced that detail will secure delivery. I present to the Almighty a kind of theological grocery list, as if heaven required itemization.
The animals stop their noise the moment they are fed. Silence falls like grace.
And I wonder — do I fall silent once I have been taken care of? Is my prayer merely the squeal before supper? Do I address God only as Provider and not as Father?
The Lord says,
“Your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.”
That is either the most comforting sentence ever spoken, or the most humiliating. It means my babble is unnecessary. It also means my trust is.
Perhaps the tragedy is not that I babble — but that I mistake babble for relationship.
3. Contemplatio — Chestertonian Synthesis
The Lord’s Prayer is astonishingly small. It is so small that it disarms my verbosity. It is a prayer that does not begin with “Give me,” but with “Our Father.”
Before bread. Before forgiveness. Before protection.
Father.
A pagan babbles because he fears the gods are distant, capricious, or inattentive. A Christian need not babble because he has been adopted.
The animals cry because they do not know the schedule. I cry because I forget the covenant.
The genius of Christ is that He replaces babble with belonging.
4. Oratio (Prayer)
Father,
Teach me to pray without performance. Quiet the squeal of anxiety in my soul. When I come to You, let it be not merely for bread, but for You.
Forgive my noise. Forgive my transactional religion. Make my prayer less like a barnyard at feeding time and more like a child leaning into his Father.
Give me daily bread, and give me daily trust.
Amen.
5. Actio — In Light of Laudato Si’ and Synodality
Climate change is a global problem with grave implications: environmental, social, economic, political and for the distribution of goods. It represents one of the principal challenges facing humanity in our day. Its worst impact will probably be felt by developing countries in coming decades.
My prayer must shape my practice. If my prayer is not babble, then neither should my charity be noise without encounter.
Today I will:
Speak less and listen more — especially to someone whose voice I usually overlook.
Offer one concrete act of charity without announcing it.
Practice a moment of silent gratitude after receiving something good, rather than immediately moving on.
Synodality begins when we stop competing to be heard and start listening as children of the same Father.
6. Song Pairing 🎵
🎶 Pink Floyd – “Babbling Brooke”🎵
Not all babbling is foolish — some of it is water running over stone, shaping the landscape quietly. Lord, let my prayer be less frantic noise and more steady current.
7. Movie Pairing 🎬
🎬Movie:Look Whos Talking (1989)
Every child begins with babble — but it is the beginning of speech, not the end of it. Lent teaches me to grow from noise into meaning.
Introvert + Apostle = Christian paradox unlocked. 🔓 Father Taylor Elzner explains how silence fuels mission, why labels aren’t boxes, and how to stop “communion to escape” and start living grace outward. Grace doesn’t delete your introversion — it perfects it! Introverts aren’t anti-social — we just need better WiFi with Heaven before mingling. This episode is introverted…but we make sure it is apostolic. 🌱
My Story
Photo used by permission of Douglas Kirkland/Corbis via Getty Images
Memorial in the Grotto of St. Mary’s Cathedral. The inscription says: “In memory of the death of innocence of the victims of clergy sexual abuse. When innocence dies…a life stops. It is essential that we never forget.“
I was one of “the few” Bishop Zurek spoke of in this letter. He first posted it in August of 2019, and in response to my, “calling out all the more“, he kept reposting it atop the diocesan news page until December 11, 2019. There it remains to this day.
Fr. Ed Graff, brought here from Philadelphia by Bishop Matthiesen, was arrested in 2002 for sexually assaulting a minor and died later that year in jail. Despite the harm linked to his ministry, he was buried in an honored section of Llano Cemetery among our pioneering clergy — a decision that continues to wound survivors and raise hard questions for our diocese.
Bishop Matthiesen, who rode the white horse of public activism even as he brought abusive priests into our diocese such as John Salazar—wounds that still mark us today. I spoke with him often, pleading with him to reconsider his “no regrets” about bringing those priests here…
Bishop Zurek, who told the Diocese of Amarillo he had “no facts” about the Philadelphia report even as Amarillo’s connection to that tragedy was headline news. When I continued to speak out, as Bishop Yanta had once urged me to do, he later wrote that I was not among the faithful and loyal disciples whom the Lord Jesus desires.
