NOTES for Gen 49:2

We rarely listen and rarely hear the voice of God. But it happens that we do hear. The Lord speaks with us, and we begin to understand what His will is for us. We meet Him and learn to trust Him. But if we meet Him only when we are alone and do not strive for the community, for the Church, if by our own choice we remain in solitude, there is a danger that in a moment of temptation, in some difficult period of our life, we will forget this meeting, stop doing what God commanded us, and decide altogether that this Meeting was only a dream.

But when in the Church we gather together and the Lord comes to us, to His one people, and abides among us, we can always testify to one another if someone doubts: "The Lord was among us that day." Sometimes the Lord speaks with us through the preaching of the priest in our church. And if we are together, when one of us acts badly, another can remind him of the words of the sermon that we heard together. A word heard together can strengthen more than something revealed to us in solitude, although this is not always so. "Come together and listen."