Do you speak listening?
Listening is a rare parlance. Listening and paying attention aren’t the same thing. Concentrating on what someone else is saying simply pays attention to what we may want to hear, the solution we are counting on, the way we want things to work out, or if things are going our way. Hearing is front loaded with a result.
Listening waits. It doesn’t always agree. It doesn’t let the other person get their way. Listening absorbs far more than outcomes or results. In fact, listening casts out anxiety about results.
The Gospel for this Sunday focuses on listening and the refusal to listen. Listening goes far beyond information. We may “hear” all the information conveyed by someone in conversation, but still not have listened.
Listening hears what words can’t contain.
To learn the language of listening doesn’t mean fixing something “wrong about me, reading the next self-help bestseller, or following the latest relationship guru. Listening means navigating the anxiety underneath.
Jesus is the navigator. He leads us. As we pray – even for three minutes in the morning, after a lunch hour, or before we go to bed, we invite Jesus in to teach us to let go of fear. And He leads us. He leads us to the Chapel of Our Lady here on campus for adoration during the day. He leads us to Confession. He leads us to Mass.
And along the way, He teaches. He teaches silently in our souls. His teaching, over time, frees us from things we have been preoccupied with for so long we have forgotten why we are preoccupied with them.
Yes, we can speak listening. But it means letting go. Letting go of fear. Letting go of all we are holding onto, so much so that we have confused what we are holding on to with the real us.
Let’s allow Jesus to teach you and me the syllables of listening. Not so that we become a pushover for others to get what they want, but so that we can be free to meet Christ and connect with others who hear His gentle voice.
God bless,
Msgr. Brian Bransfield
