Kate Soucheray, a columnist for The Catholic Spirit, shared that as she’s gotten older, she gravitates toward the Holy Spirit.
Soucheray told “Practicing Catholic” producer Rachael McCallum in a program set to air at 9 p.m. April 4 on Relevant Radio 1330 AM, “When I was super busy, our kids were young and I was just like, go, go, go, go, go. And I said to the Holy Spirit, ‘Can you speak up? Have you taken a gander down here lately? You know how busy I am. Can you just talk a little louder?’ And the Spirit got so quiet and just said, ‘Hey, Katie, how about if you try to quiet down a little bit?’”
Soucheray explained that discernment is a way of life that allows her to enter into the ability to respond to the grace of listening to the Holy Spirit’s voice.
“I’m not starting that conversation,” she said. “I’m quieting down, trying to not be so busy. The phone, the internet, the go, go, go. I’m trying to quiet myself down. That’s not something that I necessarily do. It’s more a way of life. And I’m trying to align my life with virtue.”
When she aligns her life with virtues, Soucheray said the Holy Spirit quickens her heart. She said that when she’s too busy, all worked up or distracted, there is no room for the Holy Spirit to quicken her heart, giving her no chance to respond to that prompting.
“Most churches have adoration,” Soucheray said. “When I started, I didn’t even necessarily sign up. I just went to the adoration chapel when I had a little bit of time. And what happened, when I was there, was that I just felt so at peace. … It’s so quiet and I can listen to my thoughts here and I can listen to God speaking to me.”
Soucheray said that when she began, she didn’t know what to think of adoration. She had no expectations, and she realized that it wasn’t so much about what she and God were going to talk about. Rather, it was about her showing up, sitting down and quieting her mind.
“One of the things that snuffs out the flame that the Lord is trying to ignite in us, that the Holy Spirit is working to ignite in us, is shame,” Soucheray said. “We oftentimes don’t realize shame for what it is. Shame is a human experience, and shame is different from guilt. Guilt says, ‘What I did is wrong.’ Shame takes it another step. ‘What I did was wrong, but I don’t think I deserve forgiveness.’”
When a person feels shame, it’s difficult to have openness to God, Soucheray said. She recommended asking God to step into the human experience of shame and heal it through the sacrament of reconciliation, or by talking about it with a priest.
“What we usually do when there’s a lot of shame is we put addictive behaviors into our lives and addictive behaviors only make everything worse,” Soucheray said. She again suggested people go to confession. “Step into the light and little by little, what you’ll be doing is you’ll be taking down all of that junk that we put between ourselves and God.”
To hear Soucheray discuss how to hear the promptings of the Holy Spirit, tune into “Practicing Catholic,” which repeats at 1 p.m. April 5 and 2 p.m. April 6.
As part of the program, Deacon Art Miller from St. Mary in Simsbury, Connecticut, shares the theme of being pilgrims of hope by walking through life trusting in God. Also, Tom Schulzetenberg, director of strategic projects at St. Mary’s University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, shares how Catholic philanthropy differs from its modern day, secular definition.
Produced by Relevant Radio and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, “Practicing Catholic” can be heard after it has aired at archspm.org/faith-and-discipleship/practicing-catholic or choose a streaming platform at Spotify for Podcasters.
