The more time we spend listening and contemplating the source of all life who dwells in our soul, the more impossible it becomes to be self-focused.
The foundress of Madonna House, Servant of God Catherine de Hueck Doherty, lived through the Russian Bolshevik revolution and spoke passionately against communism to anyone who would listen. She became a highly sought-after lecturer in the 1930s and 40s. Her charismatic personality and fiery zeal burned many bridges early on, but through her loneliness and many sufferings, she writes about being “led into the heart of God.” She founded several “listening” ministries that she called Friendship House. She eventually founded the Madonna House Apostolate in Combermere, Ontario. Now, Madonna House has listening houses (and listening people) all over the world.
This woman who initially couldn’t stop talking and announcing her opinions ended up focusing her life’s work on listening. The woman who could rail on and on about how much evil is in the world and about all the horrendous things she saw—that woman chose listening as her last word.
Likewise at the end of his prolific life of writing and philosophizing, the intellectual giant St. Thomas Aquinas had this to say: “it’s all straw.” His academic output was staggering and his writings were said to pour out of him. Many of his manuscripts show a “hurried, Latin shorthand.” And yet, “it’s all straw.”
In one of their recent podcasts, the Sisters of Life challenged listeners to be content to simply “be” with the other. They spoke about the need for radical presence as a means of healing. Similar to Catherine Doherty, the Sisters of Life are not only impressive as a group but their incoming postulants leave careers in law, aerospace engineering, and medicine to join the religious order.
Why are all of these holy people choosing listening as a last act?
To use our talents to contribute to the well-being of society is itself a great gift of God. But God’s chosen ones always choose the better part; what greater gift is there than to restore the world to Christ by deferring to and reverencing his presence? Isn’t this exactly what the Mary and Martha story illustrates? There are many holy men and women who get the job done splendidly and efficiently. They will recline in the kingdom with the saints.
Yet, there is a better part.
“The need for approval, the need to say everything in our mind, the need to be needed, the need to direct others toward myself, to impress them by my intellect, my capabilities—-these needs all fall away,” Catherine Doherty writes in her book, Soul of my Soul.
“In the land of loneliness, friendship becomes simple and joyous. Because all needs are centred in Christ, my own insignificance no longer matters to me. The one flaming desire to bring all men to God seems to soften the impact of all these things.”
When we allow ourselves to “be” with others, we give them the opportunity to take up their lives in their hands in the silence we have provided for them. The dignity and sacredness of each human life needs our vigilance in these moments of history. Christ suffers and loves within each soul, could we not sit one hour with him?
When we listen from the heart, we give the gift of our very selves. In a wordless moment, the other perceives that they are worthy of time and love. Nothing can replace this exchange.
What poverty it would be for them if we were so busy “speaking all the words” that the Word Himself could not be heard? Yet, isn’t this the mark of our age?
Let us be faithful conduits.
