One of the complaints that we often make today when trying to contact companies is that it is so hard to speak to someone. We all prefer to be greeted by a human being rather than by an automated answering. Yet, thanks to the marvels of modern technology, a person’s voice can be there while the person is absent.

• This is John: If you are the phone company, I already sent the money. If you are my parents, please send money. If you are my financial aid institution, you didn’t lend me enough money. If you are my friends, you owe me money.
• Please leave a message. However, you have the right to remain silent. Everything you say will be recorded and will be used by us.
• I’m probably home; I’m just avoiding someone I don’t like. Leave me a message, and if I don’t call back, it’s you.

Long before automated  answering machines were invented people were able to be present in voice only. Did you know that answering machines existed in the time of Christ? They were called Pharisees. ‘These people honour God with their lips, but their hearts are far from him’.  This is one of the pitfalls when it comes to practicing our faith. People can be present in Church in voice only, and so their worship becomes mere lip service (hollow and empty). The most important element is missing, namely the heart. In our everyday language we acknowledge the primacy of the heart. We judge a person by the heart. One of the most damming things we can say about anyone is that ‘he or she has no heart’, his heart is not in it, he is only giving a half-hearted commitment, etc. One of the best things we can say about anyone is that he or she has a heart, warm-hearted person. The Gospel places great emphasis on the heart. When it comes to religion today we worry too much about externals and not enough about true sincere commitment to our faith. I read a story of a priest who was preaching about the addiction of alcoholism. He had two glasses one with water and the other with tequilla. He got a small worm and put it into the glass of water and the worm began to swim around. He then took it out and puit it into the glass of tequilla and it immediateky died. What does this teach us? an old man in the back of the church says if I have stomach worms the best thing to do is to drink tequila. Sometimes we only hear what we want and not what God wants. One of the challenges that we are all faced with when we come here to Medjogorje is to listen to what God is asking of us. A man was climbing a mountain. He had already made it halfway to the top and it began to rain. The stones were much slippier. There was a round stone, and he steps on it and slips over the edge. Desperately he threw out his arms  for something to hold onto. Miraculously he manages to grab hold  of a small tree growing horizontally out of the rock and there he hangs. This is a man with no previous spiritual interest, who has never expressed any religious beliefs. Time passes slowly, and the strength begins to seep from his arms. They start to tremble. A fifteen hundred feet drop. Eventually he starts to panic, because he realises he won’t be able to hold on for much longer. Then he turns to the sky and says tentatively,  “Hello, God, can you hear me; I could really use some help, if you do exist”.  After a moment a deep commanding voice is heard from the sky. ‘This is God, I can help you, but you have to do exactly as I say’. The man says: ‘anything, God, anything at all’. God said: ‘let go’; the man thinks about this a few seconds and then says. ‘Is there anyone else up there I could talk to’