Keeping in touch

by Father Richard J. Hopkins

We are fortunate to have a collection of writings by Father Hopkins, a former CUSA member and spiritual advisor for one of the GLs. He was called to his eternal home in 2017, and we trust that from there he still prays for CUSA, as we also pray for him with much gratitude.

All of us like to keep in touch, especially with our family and our close friends. The cell phone has made that possible for us now—instant communication. We can share our concerns, our problems and challenges, with someone who is always ready and willing to listen. It can be very useful, especially when we might be in a near-accident or late for an appointment. But we also know it can be a hazard if we use it on the highway. Receiving bad news via the cell phone could actually jeopardize our driving skills on the interstate or freeway.

Sometimes, however, we can get a busy signal and have to put up with an answering machine that puts everything on hold.

Prayer, on the other hand, is our cell phone with God and he likes us to keep in touch. Just as we like to keep in touch with our own home here on earth, prayer helps us to keep in touch with our eternal home in heaven. God has no answering machine and, therefore, he is always available to accept our call and to listen to what we have to say. He would like to hear

from us regularly, just as our best friend likes to hear from us each day.

We can share with him our successes and our failures, our disappointments, and our many concerns. God will answer through Jesus himself who will say, “I understand. I have been there myself: I know what you are talking about.” As we continue to keep in touch with God through prayer, our conversation can be rather casual and more frequent. He will help guide us through many twists and turns in our journey through life, for he himself had many ups and downs on his journey to Calvary.

We will find that Jesus is actually a good listener and never interrupts us. Sometimes, we have to be rather quiet in order to hear what he has to say. He is so gentle and loving that he will not interrupt us for the world. As we keep in touch with him, we will gradually become aware of his divine presence in our lives as we make our journey down through the years.

He wishes to be our companion not only in emergencies but also in the cares of daily life. He will show us how to carry our cross, as he has made that journey before us. As our closest friend, he will be there to greet us when we come to the end of our journey and it will be wonderful to see him face to face, with whom we have been communicating all these years.