Year of Saint Joseph
Readings of the Day
RB: Prologue 8-13
Mass: 1 Jn 2:22-28; Resp Ps 98; Jn 1:19-28
All the ends of the earth have seen the saving power of God.
SAINT JOSEPH,
PRAY FOR US.
Dear readers, starting tomorrow and throughout the month of January, daily reflections will be brief, sometimes including only one line or phrase from one of the daily readings, or perhaps a quotation. Yesterday, we started once again at the beginning of the Rule of Saint Benedict so as to read it straight through by May 1. The first word of the Holy Rule is "listen". And this is no ordinary listening as Saint Benedict tells us when he says: "Listen carefully with the ear of your heart" (Prol. 1). United as we are in faith, let us listen deeply these days to what the Lord is saying to us. How fitting that today's Gospel acclamation includes these words from the Letter to the Hebrews: "God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets; but in our own time, the last days, He has spoken to us through His Son" (Hb 1:1-2). Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.
We need to practice the art of listening, which is more than simply hearing. Listening, in communication, is an openness of heart which makes possible that closeness without which genuine spiritual encounter cannot occur. Listening helps us to find the right gesture and word that shows that we are more than simply bystanders. Only through such respectful and compassionate listening can we enter on the paths of true growth and awaken a yearning for the Christian ideal: the desire to respond fully to God's love and to bring to fruition what he has sown in our lives.
(Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium The Joy of the Gospel, 171)
SAINT BASIL THE GREAT,
SAINT GREGORY OF NAZIANZEN,
PRAY FOR US.
© Gertrude Feick 2021
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