Listening is the doorway to learning. It may be a fact, or more often, another person’s perspective of the facts. Regardless, there is always something that can be learned by listening. In this episode of By Your Life, we talk about the key to effective listening.

Mass Readings Audio
http://ccc.usccb.org/cccradio/NABPodcasts/2020/20_03_08.mp3

Second Sunday of Lent – March 8, 2020

Welcome to the one hundred and second episode of By Your Life. I’m Lisa Huetteman and I know that you have a hundred different things you could be doing right now, so I thank you for choosing By Your Life.

My goal is to inspire, empower, support, challenge, and encourage you to connect Sunday, with Monday-Friday, in a secular, business world. It’s my desire to help you live our Catholic faith in the marketplace. I hope to offer you practical ways to go forth and glorify the Lord by your life.

In this edition, we’ll reflect on the readings for the Second Sunday of Lent (Year A). This Sunday’s gospel is the story about the Transfiguration of Jesus. I can’t help but wonder about how Peter, James, and John must have felt seeing the dazzling white Jesus conversing with Moses and Elijah. Then, to top things off, the voice of God speaks directly to them. “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” (Mt 17:5) This Sunday, the voice that came from the cloud was speaking to us too when He said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” (Mt 17:5) So, I ask you, how well do you listen?

In episode 051 of By Your Life, I talked about how listening is the most important element of effective communication, but it is not a skill most of us invest in improving. Listening is the doorway to learning. It may be a fact, or more often, another person’s perspective of the facts. Regardless, there is always something that can be learned by listening.

Better listening is something that I personally worked on a few years ago. It was one of my new year’s resolutions. Focusing on listening helped me break my bad habits…sort of. I think this is a skill where I need to invest in more practice. I need to invest in listening to others and I really need to invest in listening to God.

As I was reflecting on this, my first thought was that I needed to invest more time listening to God. But that’s not really true. I have built a good routine that includes praying, exercising, studying, working, socializing, sleeping, and taking care of administration. So, I don’t think it is practical to invest more time. What I need instead is to change how I use the time I’m already investing.

One of the Dynamic Catholic’s “Best Lent Ever” reflections this week was based on Chapter 5 of Matthew Kelly’s book, “Rediscover the Saints.” In this chapter, Matthew Kelly shares how St. Teresa of Ávila taught him to pray. St. Teresa was a Carmelite nun, reformer, author, and mystic. In describing a mystic, Matthew Kelly wrote, “Mystics are people who have become totally united with God through prayer and self-surrender. He or she could often have mystical experiences that include visions or hearing the voice of God.” That sounds an awful lot like what Peter, James, and John experienced in the Transfiguration of Jesus.

But how do people become mystics and why are only a select few offered this gift? The answer is that maybe its not only offered to a select few. Maybe only a  few have offered themselves to God through prayer and self-surrender. Then it struck me: self-surrender is not only the key to more effective prayer, but self-surrender is also the key to more effective listening.

In the book The Collaborative Way by Lloyd Fickett and Jason Fickett, the authors share a simple model to help people work together more effectively. One of the five core practices of The Collaborative Way® is “Listening Generously.” When we are listening generously we are:

• Giving our full attention to the speaker
• Curious and willing to be influenced
• Setting aside our prejudices, preconceived conclusions and judgments
• Not waiting for an opening to argue our point or thinking of our rebuttal

How can you give your full attention to the speaker without self-surrender? How can you be willing to be influenced without self-surrender? How can you set aside prejudices, preconceived conclusions and judgments without self-surrender? And, how can you avoid waiting for an opening to argue or thinking of your rebuttal without self-surrender? You can’t! Without surrendering your distractions, your convictions, your prejudices, judgments, and pride, you cannot listen generously.

Back to the story of the Transfiguration of Jesus. As I imagined that mountaintop experience, I wondered what I would have done. Knowing me, I would have been a jumbled mess of emotions, but I probably couldn’t wait to tell someone what had happened. But Jesus put the kibosh on that! “As they were coming down from the mountain, Jesus charged them, ‘Do not tell the vision to anyone until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.’” (Mt 17:9)

How could they possibly keep this to themselves? And why, do you suppose Jesus told them not to tell anyone? I certainly don’t want to presume to know the answer. It was obvious from Peter’s suggestion to make three tents at the location that he didn’t quite fully grasp what he’d seen. So, I think Jesus wanted them to wait until they had the whole story so they could fully comprehend what they had experienced. He asked them to wait until they could process it in light of his resurrection. He was also asking them to surrender their need to go back and tell everyone about how cool their trip to the mountain was because sharing it needed to be for the benefit of others. Unless they could share the vision in the context of the resurrection, they would only be satisfying their own need to tell their story.

Listen and wait until you have the whole story before you speak or act. Hmmm… There might be something here. Many a conflict is created because someone says something, and we accept it and act on it without finding out the whole truth. Parents do this with their kids when one child says, “Tommy hit me!” and they punish Tommy before finding out that Tommy was only defending himself.

At work, I constantly hear stories of managers who act on one employee’s perspective of an issue without first seeking input from other employees. One leader I was working with was always creating issues between departments when one manager would come to him and complain about another. Without first hearing the other manager’s side of the story, he’d take corrective action, which was often not the best action and had to be undone. The bigger issue was that his approach was divisive as the second manager always felt undermined.

So, I coached him that whenever one employee came to him complaining about another, his first question should be, “Did you talk to them about this before coming to me?” His second question should be, “Can we bring the other manager in here to hear their side of the story?” Although this approach takes more time, it not only helps create a better solution, it teaches listening, collaboration and teamwork to your employees. Eventually, you hope they stop coming to you to complain and learn to resolve the issues on their own, which is a return on your time invested.

One final thought. We know from Mark (Mk 9:10) and Luke’s (Lk 9:36) Gospels that Peter, James, and John did keep silent and tell no one about the transfiguration. But, I wonder, were they changed by what they witnessed? Did the other disciples notice that they were different when they came down from the mountain? Were they strengthened? Did they encourage others? Did they do anything differently?

See, there is another very important message in this week’s readings, and that is, do we act on what we hear? The first reading from the Book of Genesis begins with “The LORD said to Abram:” (Gen 12:1) and ends with “Abram went as the LORD directed him.” (Gen 12:4) The gap between listening to and heeding the word of God is where our opportunity lies. But, it requires self-surrender.

Is surrendering our will to the will of God a challenge? Yes, and a life-long struggle. This is why we fast in Lent. Not because chocolate is bad for us, but because giving it up strengthens our self-denial muscles so that we are able to surrender our will. And this is why we pray in Lent. Not because God needs to hear from us, but because we need to hone our ability to listen to him.

This is what Matthew Kelly described when he spoke of the mystics. They are people who have become totally united with God through prayer and self-surrender. So maybe, through our Lenten practices, we too can become a little more like the mystics. St. Teresa of Ávila said, “Christ does not force our will. He takes only what we give him. But he does not give himself entirely until he sees that we yield ourselves entirely to him.”

Surrendering ourselves entirely to him will not only change our lives, but it will also affect the lives of those around us. So, let’s pray with St. Teresa of Ávila and ask her to pray for us.

Lord, grant that we may always allow ourselves to be guided by You, always follow your plans and perfectly accomplish your holy will. Grant that in all things, great and small, today and all the days of our lives, we may do whatever You require of us. Help us respond to the slightest prompting of your Grace, so that we may be your trustworthy instruments for your honor. May your will be done in time and in eternity by us, in us, and through us. Amen.

St. Teresa of Avila pray for us so that we may glorify the Lord by our lives.

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