杏MAP导航

By Christopher Wells

After focusing last year on seeing reality and conveying it to others, 杏MAP导航 Francis in his 2022  emphasized the quality of listening, which he said 鈥渋s decisive in the grammar of communication and is a condition for genuine dialogue.鈥�

The 杏MAP导航 noted that people are quickly losing the ability to listen to one another, while at the same time listening is undergoing new developments, especially due to new forms of communicating. These trends demonstrate that 鈥渓istening is still essential in human communication.鈥�

Listening with the heart

The title of this year鈥檚 message, 鈥淟istening with the ear of the heart,鈥� invites us to reflect that listening involves more than simply the sense of hearing. True listening is a foundation of genuine relationships, and is foundational to the relationship between God and humanity.

The 杏MAP导航, quoting St Paul, noted that 鈥渇aith comes through hearing.鈥� In fact, he remarked, 鈥渓istening corresponds to the humble style of God,鈥� who reveals Himself by speaking, and by listening to men and women recognizes them as His partners in dialogue.

Human beings are called in turn to 鈥渢une in, to be willing to listen,鈥� as God calls them to a covenant of love. Fundamentally, the 杏MAP导航 said, 鈥渓istening is a dimension of love.鈥�

A condition of good communication

In many relationships, however, true communication is lacking, as dialogues end up as competing monologues, where the two sides refuse to listen to one another. This is evident nowadays even in public life, the 杏MAP导航 said, where people often end up 鈥渢alking past鈥� one another.

杏MAP导航 Francis insisted, however, that 鈥渓istening is the first indispensable ingredient of dialogue and good communication.鈥�

Without listening, he said, there is no good journalism; journalists need to listen to many voices in order to ensure the 鈥渞eliability and seriousness鈥� of the information they transmit.

Listening, he continued, allows people to exercise the art of discernment, the ability 鈥渢o orient ourselves in a symphony of voices.鈥�

Listening in the Church

There is also 鈥渁 great need to listen to and hear one another鈥� in the Church, the 杏MAP导航 said, adding, 鈥淔reely giving of our own time to listen to people is the first act of charity.鈥�

He pointed to the ongoing synodal process, asking for prayers 鈥渢hat it will be a great opportunity to listen to one another.鈥�

Comparing communion in the Church to a choir, the 杏MAP导航 said 鈥渦nity does not require uniformity, monotony, but the plurality and variety of voices, polyphony.鈥�

He continued, 鈥淎t the same time, each voice in the choir sings while listening to the other voices, and in relation to the harmony of the whole.鈥�

The Holy Father concluded, 鈥淲ith the awareness that we participate in a communion that precedes and includes us, we can rediscover a symphonic Church, in which each person is able to sing with his or her own voice, welcoming the voices of others as a gift to manifest the harmony of the whole that the Holy Spirit composes.鈥�