Devotion July 2018 - LPNI

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Devotion July 2018

Listen with the ear of your heart

A family stepped out of the lift at the top of the CN Tower in Toronto, Canada. The father went ahead on his own, but his four-year-old daughter wanted to go with him and grabbed his hand. He shook it free, and told her to stay where she was, but she just cried. Her mother also tried to stop her, and gave her a resounding whack … which made her cry even more.

‘But mummy, listen’, the little girl sobbed … but her mother only gave her another sharp rebuke. She didn’t take the time to find out what her daughter wanted to tell her. Why did she want to go with her father?

St Benedict was a monk who is credited with founding a monastery at Monte Cassino, about 80 km south-east of Rome, which became the basis of the Catholic church’s monastic system. His instructions on religious life were collected into what is known as the Rule of St Benedict. This Rule begins with the words, ‘Listen with the ear of your heart!’

Listening like this is an important aspect of pastoral care. It means you acknowledge the person talking with you as someone of value … someone worth listening to, no matter how they express themselves. Sometimes you need to be prepared to sift through the tangled message, the heavy accent, the garbled grammar, or the poor communication skills. And very often you have to listen to discern what really lies behind the actual words that you hear ... what fears, what problems, what anxieties, what concerns, what doubts. This may well take time … and more than one conversation.

God always listens to us with ‘the ear of his heart’. He never shakes himself free from us or turns his back on us. We never need to say to him, through our tears, ‘But God, listen!’ He always does listen, and he hears the actual fears and doubts and concerns that are there in our heart and mind. This is the implication of what Jesus once said: ‘Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest’ (Matthew 11:28). It’s an invitation, and a promise. It’s a promise that he will ‘listen with his heart’, and actually hear our needs – including those we do not ourselves know – and will respond with his almighty power, and his all-encompassing love.

It’s both the inspiration and the model for us to ‘listen with the ear of our heart’ to those who come to us.

May God grant us the grace to be such a compassionate, caring listener … because we ourselves have been listened to … and heard!

(Rev) Robert J Wiebusch

Adelaide, South Australia

robert.wiebusch@lca.org.au