We cannot speak with our eyes closed

Fr. Livio Tonello, director

Listening is everything: it means to be aware of what is happening around us every day. Listening is much more important than hearing because our senses are constantly stimulated by messages. Thanks God the conscious and the unconscious always work together to select the information and to manage them. This sometimes happens when we listen to a boring person who keeps on repeating the same things: his words slip away quickly. Faith too comes by listening (fides ex auditus as saint Paul wrote in the letter to Romans (10-17), faith comes by listening to God’s word and by experiencing it and by answering to it. The feast of Saint Anthony (celebrated on 13th June) to whom we renew our devotion, offers food for thoughts. In his life there was always a deep bond between words and listening. We remember him as a great predicator able to transform the biblical narrations into persuasive exhortations thanks to his spirituality and profound knowledge of the Bible. His greatness consists in the strength of his word that did not fear - the arrogance and the pride of the powerful. Where did his capacity to actualise God’s word come from? Certainly from his ability to…