Are you listening?

I’ve always considered myself a decent listener. I worked in the media business for 22 years as a reporter, producer and anchor, and listening was a big part of my job. But authentic listening, listening with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, changes everything.

On Saturday, over 50 people, including teenagers and Catholics of all ages, came together in Alice at St. Joseph’s Parish Hall for a Synodality Retreat led by Bishop Michael Mulvey and Jesse DeLeon, Assistant Director of the Diocese's Communications Department. He has a background in the Radio business and is a professor of communications at Del Mar College. He used his background to put together this retreat. 

“We’re taught to hear, but listening takes work,” says DeLeon. The objective of the current Synod is to listen, as the entire people of God, to what the Holy Spirit is saying to the Church. We do so by listening together to the Word of God in Scripture and the living Tradition of the Church and then by listening to one another. But listening sounds easier than it is. 
Bishop Michael Mulvey gave a great example of what it feels like when we are not heard: A young mom called a parish and asked if her son could be baptized. And what she was told was, “Do you go to Church?” and nervously, the new mom said, “No,” and she was told, “Oh well, you need to go to church,” and ended the call. Bishop Mulvey asked, “Is that the Church we want to be a part of? Many of the people that have left the Church have heard that question. In other words, it was not listening; it was a judgment. Let us be a synodal Church. A Church that can walk with that person and not push them away.” 

The retreat, which started at 9:30 am and ended at 2 pm, provided tools to learn Agape-flavored listening. “Maybe it will change the way you interact with your family—with your children, with your parents, with the people that are close to you,” said DeLeon.

True listening is to love. Stop when your parent or child tells youJesse DeLeon, Assistant Director of Communications something you don’t want to hear. Listen. They are trying to communicate. Forget that you have laundry sitting in the washer. Forget that you have to pick up groceries to cook dinner. Stop. Listen. Or if it’s a fellow parishioner who enjoys talking a little too much and you want to get to your car, stop. Listen. 
This was the 1st Synodality Retreat. Keep an eye out for the next one stopping in your deanery. I promise it will change how you interact with one another, whether at home or in your parish. Listening, asking the Holy Spirit for guidance, and finding common ground in love will, in the end, benefit us as a Church and as a family in Christ.