LISTEN TO JESUS
More and more we have less time to listen. We don’t know how to approach the heart of the other calmly and without prejudices. We can’t figure out how to welcome the message that each human being can communicate to us. Closed up in our own problems, we pass near other people without bothering to stop to really hear anyone. We’re forgetting the art of listening.
That’s why it doesn’t end up strange that we Christians have forgotten for the most part that being a believer is to go about listening to Jesus. However, it’s only from listening that the true Christian faith is born.
According to the Gospel writer Mark, when the disciples were on the «mountain of the transfiguration», afraid at feeling themselves enveloped by the shadows of a cloud, they only heard these words: «This is my Son, the Beloved. Listen to him».
The experience of listening to Jesus deep within can be painful, but is exciting. It’s not what we would have imagined based on our schemes and cliches. His mystery escapes us. Almost without realizing it we’re pulled out of securities that are very dear to us, in order to be drawn toward a more authentic life.
We find ourselves, at last, with someone who says the ultimate truth. Someone who knows what to live for and what to die for. Something that speaks to us from within what is true. In his life and in his message there is truth.
If we persevere in a patient and sincere listening, our life begins to be illuminated with new light. We begin to see it more clearly. We go about discovering what is the more human way of confronting life’s problems and death’s mystery. We recognize the great mistakes we humans can commit and the great infidelities of us Christians.
We must take better care in our Christian communities of the faithful listening to Jesus. To listen to him can heal us of secular blindness, free us of discouragement and almost constant cowardices, it can instill new vigor in our faith.
José Antonio Pagola
Translator: Fr. Jay VonHandorf
