On the feast of St. Francis de Sales, patron saint of journalists, the Vatican has made public the Message of the Holy Father Francis for the 56th World Day of Social Communications, which this year 2022 is announced with the title «Listening with the ears of the heart».
Last year we reflected on the need to «go and see» in order to discover the reality and be able to tell it from the experience of events and the encounter with people. Following in this line, the Pope now expresses his desire to focus one’s attention on another verb, «to listen», which is decisive in the grammar of communication and a condition for an authentic dialogue.
Indeed, we are losing the ability to listen to who is in front of us, whether in the normal scenario of everyday relationships or in debates on the most important issues in civil life. At the same time, listening is undergoing a new and important development in the communicative and informative field, through the various podcast and audio chat offerings, confirming that listening is still essential for human communication.
Francis went on to say in his message: A well-known doctor, accustomed to heal the wounds of the soul, was asked what the greatest need of human beings was. He replied, «The immense need to be listened to.» It is a desire that often remains hidden, but that challenges all those who are called to be educators or formators, or who play the role of communicator: parents and teachers, pastors and pastoral workers, information workers and those who provide a social or political service.
The Pope based his message of “Listening with the ears of the heart”, in the biblical pages where we learn that listening not only has the meaning of an acoustic perception, but is essentially linked to the dialogical relationship between God and humanity. «Shema’ Israel – Listen, Israel» (Deut. 6:4), the incipit of the first commandment of the Torah is continually proposed in the Bible, to such an extent that St. Paul affirms that «faith comes from listening» (Rom. 10:17). Indeed, the initiative is of God who speaks to us, and we respond by listening to him; but also this listening, in the background, comes from his grace, as happens to the newborn who responds to the gaze and voice of the mother and father. Of the five senses, it seems that the one privileged by God is precisely the ear, perhaps because it is less invasive, more discreet than sight, and therefore leaves the human being freer.
Listening corresponds to God’s humble style. It is that action that allows God to reveal Himself as the One who, speaking, creates man in His image, and, listening, recognizes Him as his interlocutor. God loves man: that is why he addresses the Word to him, that is why he «bows his ear» to listen to Him.
Francis upholds that on the one hand there is God, Who always reveals Himself by communicating freely; and on the other, the man, who is asked to listen. The Lord explicitly calls man to a covenant of love, so that he may become fully what he is: the image and likeness of God in his capacity to listen, to welcome, to give space to the other. Listening, deep down, is a dimension of love.
To read the full message of the 56th World Day you can access from the following link:
Photograph taken from the Dicastery for Communications
Taken from: SIC Agency (Catholic Information Service)