Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Listening to another, hearts connect, and intimacy happens. I see the other as a person of inestimable value. I hear them and accept them as a person who has value, feelings, and emotions. They are a person whom I esteem. Though I may disagree with their values, ideas, and feelings, I accept and affirm the other. I enter a dialogue. Our conversation emphasizes empathy and sympathy which allows the conversation to discuss and debate honorably, seeking understanding.
Differences and difficulties arise but if the conversation seeks the truth, then the conversation creates communion. Communion shares ideas, feelings, values, and most importantly hearts. Communication, seeking the truth, creates a communion that connects heart to heart, soul to soul.
Listening protects the integrity—value—of the other. Listening opens the mind to hear more than just the meanings of the words and sounds, but emotions, empathy, and intentions of the other’s heart. Listening incorporates the whole person experiencing the depth and breadth of the other pouring out their heart and soul through their words. The heart needs to hear, observing the body with its emotions and the mind with its intellect to grasp the deeper and hidden meanings expressed within the words.
With true union, hearts discern what is good and beautiful. They behold the goodness of the other. They delight in the beauty contained within each. Heart to heart, we experience the goodness and beauty of the other. We embrace these two with all our might becoming fused together. Loving with all our might and heart, our soul transforms. We willingly give our soul—our life—to the one we love.
Love begins with listening to discern the truth; rather than listening with our emotions and feelings which easily deceive us from the truth. Listening with the heart, the heart discerns our emotions, feelings, and passions and orders them not to satisfy the self, but to give one’s self away. True love, a sincere gift of one’s goodness to another, arranges all our emotions, feelings, and passions to complete and complement the other whom we love. Love then listens intently to the other seeking to fulfill their deepest longings.
Love listening invites us into full communion. Not only do we become filled, overflowing with life: to live is to love; we fulfill the other giving them our love which fulfills them. Love fulfills life. It satisfies the heart as well as the body and soul. But where do we find fulfilling love?
Love listens with the heart because it hears the other. But to Whom are we to listen? Moses tells us clearly. Listen to God, He speaks of true love.
"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD; and you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might” (Deut 6:4).
This is the Shema, the great prayer God gave to Moses as the Israelites are about to enter the Promised Land. God commands the people to listen first, then love. Loving without listening distorts love. But listening, we seek the truth of love which gives love true freedom to find fulfillment.
Shema in Hebrew translates listen, hear, even obey. We are to listen to God and obey His voice calling us. Yet as Scripture tells us, the Israelites hardened their hearts, would not listen to God’s voice. They disobeyed the voice of God and loved falsely.
Divine Love is the life-force, the divine spirit within, giving our lives meaning, purpose, and fulfillment. If our love is disordered, centered on self, not God, then our lives are disordered, too. We live for ourselves only to die alone. Yet, if we live for the other, that is what the heart is truly made for: to love another as your very self, then, our lives find pure love. It is no longer I who live, but Divine Love lives within me. This is heaven.
Refusing to listen degrades the other, but worse, destroys me. I diminish for I refuse to listen. I no longer affirm the importance of the other; and in so doing, I diminish myself. No longer can I become one with another. Instead, I divorce myself from the other for I refused to listen, hear, and obey the other, seeing no goodness or truth in them. Instead, I, as did the Israelites, loved my truth rather than God’s truth. I loved my goodness more than my neighbor’s.
Rejecting God’s command to listen then to love the truth, hatred develops. Arguments arise. We try to force the other into a mindset they do not believe to be true nor good. They will never accept God’s vision of truth and goodness. Forcing, manipulating, even deceiving another, freedom is stilted. Love is forced. Listening stops. We impose rather propose. True love respects another’s freedom to accept or reject. True love invites the other into conversation to seek the truth, especially the truth concerning God. True love also reveals the consequences of rejecting God’s truth and his definition of goodness.
Arguments arise if our relationships do not honestly seek then accept God’s truth. Differences harden the heart and listening ceases. Without listening to God’s truth concerning life and love, grave injustices arise creating divisions, dissentions, discouragements. These lead to violence, terrorism, and revolutions scaring the very hearts and souls of others for centuries.
Because of the hardness of hearts, theirs and ours, God commands us not just to recite this prayer, but to live this prayer with deeds. Jesus never said Love me. Rather, He commanded, “This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome” (1 Jn 5:3). Keeping the commandment of love entails doing good deeds to the other, not that they deserve it, but God commands it.
You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason with your neighbor, lest you bear sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance or bear any grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD (Lev 19:17–18).
God formed us in his image and likeness. We mirror Him through our power to love. His love bestows upon us truth, goodness, and beauty, even when we did not deserve it. We freely give to others what was freely given. We freely share our truth, goodness, and beauty. In so doing, we mirror Him doing what He does for us. When we love as God loves, giving my life to another, my heart become his heart as his heart becomes mine. Oneness with Divine Love occurs.
To combat selfish love, God commands we recite both sides of the Shema (Love God and love neighbor) daily, morning, noon, and night. He wants us to embody this prayer not just the words but embrace Him Who gave with our heart and mind. His command is more than a precept. It is his way of being. He is love and He loves us with all his heart, soul, and strength. To let his “command” transform our minds, his Divine Love awakens our soul to love Him and neighbor with all our strength, mind, and heart.
God wants to rule our lives, not by force or fear, but out of love. To experience God’s love, our heart, soul, and body listen to his voice first. We hear not just the sounds of God’s voice speaking, but our hearts experience Divine Love touching, healing, awakening our bodies, minds, and hearts. He wants what makes us good, that is fulfilled freed from the evils that threaten our lives. He wants what makes us beautiful, to seek perfection freed from the divisions and dissentions that corrupt our relationships. He wants what makes us true, authentic to ourselves, not living the lies that distort love. These three: the goodness, beauty, and truth, make us mirror God’s justice, treating our neighbor as He treats us.
God is a just God Who gives each according to his deeds. He commands love not to limit but to free us so freed from selfish love. Keeping the commandments to love God and neighbor, we reconcile with each other and with God. Nothing more life-changing occurs as when we reconcile ourselves to God. Being in right relationship with God, we reconcile any broken relationships with our brother or sister. This is not a command, but a protection from the destructive forces that seek to divide and divorce us.
In his letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul encourages us to be reconciled to the righteousness, justice of God, stating. “He made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness (justice) of God” (2 Co 5:21). Living justly, we love honorably, forgiving what needs to be forgiven. Asking for forgiveness when needed. Listening to St. Paul, we reflect God’s love for He wants us to live in harmony with each other.
No longer do we live divided. We live united with God, keeping the commandment to listen with all our heart to God’s heart. Through heartfelt listening, He makes us just revealing who we are: his children filled with Divine Love: his truth, goodness, and beauty. We who reflect God’s love seek to reconcile with others listening to their hearts as God listens to ours.