The Father’s Heart Revealed

Amanda Woodiel’s dream showed her that any evangelization efforts must be firmly rooted in having a heart like the Father's. 

I awoke with a start. Was that a regular dream or was that a true dream? I wondered.  

Over the years, I’ve come to realize that God occasionally reveals things to me in dreams. These are completely gratuitous gifts of grace; there’s nothing about me that “merits” these moments. I try only to examine particularly vivid dreams to see if there is some truth there that I need to know and understand.   

Most of the times when I awaken, I know it was just an average dream. Other times I know immediately that it was a true dream, which is to say, a gift from God. Sometimes I have to ponder it to be able to know the difference. 

Not just your average dream

In this dream, I was at Mass with my family. In the middle of Mass, a large group of people (about 25) went to the front of the church, faced the congregation, and began performing a song complete with choreography. They were so lively, and it looked like so much fun that more people joined them. Our pastor, 30 years old and in his second year of the priesthood and first year as our head pastor, but who has the wisdom and humility of a much older man, went to the lectern (not the ambo, but the other one where people will sometimes make announcements) and broke into their song.

“Please,” he said, “please sit down. I know you are upset about changes your former pastor made. Please be patient. I am praying about it.” He continued talking to them, and they sat back down amidst his pleadings.  

All was silent for a beat. Then one person got up and walked out the back of the church. Then another. A third, a fourth followed until a multitude of people — about 70% of the parishioners — had exited.  

Our pastor — still standing at the lectern — wept. He wept. 

I was sitting in a pew near him, and, as we have a collegial friendship and as I work part-time at the parish and am on the parish council, and me being me, I immediately began to comfort him, saying things like, “Don’t worry. We will be okay. We can come back from this …” but I trailed off as I suddenly realized: He’s not weeping out of fear or concern over numbers. He’s weeping because he has a Father’s heart. His heart is broken. His children have left him.  

And then I awoke. 

Was that a true dream? Should I tell my priest about it?

I asked my husband and a couple of close friends. Although it seemed like a bad dream to people when I recounted it, the dominant message was the revelation of the depths of the father’s heart our priest has for his flock.  

I postponed doing anything about it long enough that I almost forgot about it altogether until, a few days later, my priest called me. He had a question about an administrative plan that had been made before he had arrived at our parish. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“Actually,” I responded, “I just finished reading the very last Winnie-the-Pooh story to my girls, and I’m sitting here crying. Christopher Robin, he grows up or goes to school — I don’t know — but he’s not coming back, and it makes me cry.”  

“Awww,” he said. “It touches your mother’s heart!” 

The phrase jolted me back into that vivid dream, so after we had hung up, I wrote him an email in which I explained it to him and waited somewhat nervously to hear how that would sit with him.  

His first words were, “Praise God!” He went on to say that he had been pondering the Father’s heart by reading a book on that very topic. He, in this, his first year as head pastor, seemed encouraged by the Lord’s kindness in providing that consolation.  

For me, the dream revealed something else of paramount importance: that all of our efforts for evangelization and bringing people into the Church absolutely must be rooted in having a father’s heart. If it does not spring out of having its roots in that place, then it will wither. Wanting people to come to my event because “they need to know this” is, as Saint Paul says, a gong resounding. It’s chaff in the wind. I must desire it because I love them and desire to provide a space to draw them nearer the Father’s heart. 

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Copyright 2024 Amanda Woodiel
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