Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B January 18, 2015
Church of Saint Ignatius Loyola
Chestnut Hill MA
Joseph M. O’Keefe, S.J.
One day in March, three gentlemen of a certain age were taking a walk outdoors. The first one said, "It's windy." The second one said, "No, it's Thursday."
And a third said, "Me too. Let's get a drink."
As the years go by, I find myself increasingly able to relate to this little joke about being hard of hearing. There are ways to deal with being hard of hearing. It is much more difficult to find ways to deal with being hard of listening. Hearing and listening are not the same thing. Hearing defines only the physical measurement of the sound waves that are transmitted to the ear and into the brain where they are processed into audible information. Hearing is easy; listening is difficult. Spiritual writer Henri Nouwen put it well:
To listen is very hard, because it asks of us so much interior stability that we no longer need to prove ourselves by speeches, arguments, statements or declarations. True listeners no longer have an inner need to make their presence known. They are free to receive, welcome, to accept. Listening is much more than allowing another to talk while waiting for a chance to respond. Listening is paying full attention to others and welcoming them into our very beings. The beauty of listening is that those who are listened to start feeling accepted, start taking our words more seriously and discovering their true selves.
Nouwen concluded, “Listening is a form of spiritual hospitality.”
Listening is the heart of prayer. Today we heard a familiar story from the
Hebrew Scriptures. Eli, wise from the practice of many years of spiritual hospitality, instructed young Samuel, "if you are called, reply, speak Lord, for your servant is listening." When God called his name, Samuel did just that. Like Samuel, if we listen carefully, we will perceive the subtle annunciations and quiet epiphanies that God sends to us, we will be hospitable to the spirit of Christ. "Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening."
If we learn to listen, we will be hospitable to others. My wise old grandmother used to say, "Joey, there’s a reason God gave you two years and one month. You should listen twice as much as you speak."
Imagine how much better the world would be if we spent more time listening and less time speaking. Our political culture is so terribly polarized. Take any important policy debate; there's too much shouting and not enough listening, too much grandstanding and not enough reflection, too many sound bites and not enough substance.
In our personal lives, we sometimes stop listening to people with whom we have an intimate connection; we can finish their sentences – same old, same old – and, instead of listening to my companion, I formulate my next pearl of wisdom. We need to listen to new insights, even from very familiar voices, lest our conversations devolve into simultaneous monologues.

We all know how difficult it is to listen to people we don't understand, how challenging it can be to offer spiritual hospitality to those different from ourselves.
We need to acknowledge and grow beyond our prejudices if we are to encounter the other. On this Martin Luther King weekend, we commit ourselves to listen to the experience of those who have been subjected to the ugliness of racism, saddened by recent events that teach us that racism is still alive and well. And we learn to listen to people with a worldview and a history unlike our own. How easy it is to be deaf to the other, the alien, the stranger.
This coming week, we will observe the 107th Octave of Christian Unity, joining with our sisters and brothers in Orthodox, Anglican, and Reform communities around the world to reflect on the truth proclaimed in Paul's letter to the Corinthians, that we are all members of Christ. With them, we acknowledge the gospel faith that we share, and we recognize our common belief that Christ's kingdom will come, a kingdom of peace and justice, of love and life eternal. We approach this week as learners more than teachers, yearning to appreciate the rich history and cultural context of Christians different than ourselves. And, in a spirit of humility, we come to appreciate a new the beauty of our own tradition, the joy of a
Catholic way of life.
Let us pray that God will give us ears not just for hearing, but for listening.
And let us pray in the words that will be recited across the world on this octave of
Christian unity:
God, who are with us and walk in our midst, grant us this day the grace of your light and Spirit so that we may continue our mission and remain faithful to welcoming and listening to all, even those who are different from ourselves. Take away the violence that is in our hearts and the discriminating attitudes that exclude and devalue the human dignity of others. Enable our churches to be welcoming spaces where feast and forgiveness, joy and tenderness, strength and faith become our daily practice, our daily food, our daily movement forward in Jesus Christ. Amen.