Let my heart listen

God calls us first, and our adequate response to His summons is faith, that is, “the obedience of faith”. To obey, from the Latin ob-audire, means to "hear or listen to". St. Benedict begins his Holy Rule with the word “listen.” By this, he indicates that listening is the starting point of the itinerary towards true happiness. Our lives, when they finally do speak, are a response emerging from our best comprehension of the voice heard, the voice of God.

Today, at their very heart, the gravest crises afflicting the world stem precisely from the inability to listen to one another. Unfortunately, we live in a world where value no longer comes from listening, but only from having ‘the last word.’ There is an unbounded desire to be heard, a desire that will always accompany us, but remain unsated.

Physical deafness or being hard of hearing can badly affect everyone. Not understanding what is said and asking repeatedly to have things repeated can be exasperating. Living with a deaf or partially deaf person can be a challenging condition that makes life difficult.

If this is how it is with physical deafness, how pitiable spiritual deafness must be! All too frequently, we willfully become partially deaf; that is, we hear only what we choose to hear! How many loving parents struggle with their children who are hard of hearing or listening?

Examples abound. Many young people today are not able to listen because of their automatic self-defense, which blocks their hearing and blinds them completely to the truth. Changing the scenario, a mother may approach in this manner: 'By the way, Sonny, how would you like a vacation in Switzerland this summer?' Lo and behold, everybody witnessed a 'miracle'. Everything Mama said, which seemed to go unheard, is suddenly heard with the utmost clarity when preceded by the idea of a glamorous trip! In short, one factor sums up the issue: we automatically hear and respond to what is subjectively satisfying at hand!

In interrelationships, the best communicators are the good listeners. It is an indication of maturity and balance, of being mindful and present to those who need our attention. But to listen, I must renounce other voices. To obey the voice of God, I must know what it is that He wants and asks of me, and above all else, I should know how to respond the way He wants me to. First and foremost, I need to acknowledge that Someone is there, calling, waiting for my response.

Besides the sloth of disobedience getting in the way of listening to the voice of the Lord, there are other pretexts or beating around the bush. If I desire to enter into dialogue with God, then I must stop running, shut up long enough to listen, and let God crack open my heart, in the most unexpected places. Then I will discover the point for my conversion, the nooks and crannies in my heart that need to be touched by His saving Grace. I can look up and cry: “What is man that You should care for him, mortal man that You keep him in?”, or reconsider the constant invitation of St. Benedict: Seeking his workman in a multitude of people, the Lord calls out to him and lifts his voice again: Is there anyone here who yearns for life and desires to see good days?