There is a simple but searching truth at the heart of the spiritual life: we cannot love what we do not know. And we cannot know God—truly know God—without giving Him our attention.
St. Marcellin Champagnat reminds us that the whole movement of the Christian life flows from this single source. We serve God because we love Him. We love Him because we esteem Him. And we esteem Him because we have come to know His beauty, His goodness, His perfection.
But that knowledge does not happen by accident. It grows only where we make space for it.
This is why the saints insist on daily meditation. Not as a burden, not as a task to check off, but as the quiet place where the Shepherd’s voice becomes recognizable. Without this steady turning of the heart toward God, Champagnat says, we lose our bearings. We forget who God is, who we are, and what we are made for. Hosea saw this clearly: when the knowledge of God fades, disorder rushes in to fill the void.
St. Augustine puts it plainly: “He who keeps his eyes closed cannot see the road which leads to his homeland.” Meditation is the opening of the eyes. It is the lifting of the gaze toward the One who calls us home.
The Holy Spirit never stops inviting us into this light. “Approach God,” the Spirit whispers. “Meditate on His law, and you will be enlightened.” What sunlight does for the earth, warming, brightening, gladdening, giving life, meditation does within the soul. It pours light into our understanding. It strengthens our will. It spreads a quiet joy through the heart. It nourishes us with grace.
This is how we learn to hear the Shepherd’s voice: by turning toward Him each day, by letting His truth warm us, by allowing His presence to steady and shape us.
In time, His voice becomes familiar—no longer distant or indistinct, but intimate, trustworthy, unmistakably His. And as we follow that voice, we discover that the path He leads us on is not one of fear, but of life.
The Shepherd speaks. Our task is simply to listen.
Smitten With Goodness 