“Listening with the ear of the heart” is the theme proposed by Pope Francis for the 56th World Communications Day, to be celebrated on the Sunday of the Ascension of the Lord, this year on May 29.
“Listening is undergoing an important new development in the field of communication and information through the various podcasts and audio messages available that serve to confirm that listening is still essential in human communication,” the Pope mentions in the message for this day, which was published this January 24 with the celebration of St. Francis de Sales, patron saint of journalists.
Read the complete message
Taking the scriptures, from Deuteronomy to the epistles of St. Paul, the verb to listen is very present because “listening corresponds to the humble style of God”.
In this way, the Pope tells communicators that “only by paying attention to whom we listen, to what we listen, and to how we listen that we can grow in the art of communicating, the heart of which is not a theory or a technique, but the ‘openness of heart that makes closeness possible’.”
In Laudato Si’ we are called to “hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor” (LS 49), being sensitive to the human pains that so many brothers and sisters suffer, and to the climatic tragedies that devastate many regions of our planet.
Indeed, “the true seat of listening is the heart,” he says and recalls St. Francis of Assisi when he “exhorted his brothers to incline the ear of the heart.”
“The first type of listening to be rediscovered is listening to oneself, to one’s truest needs, those inscribed in each person’s inmost being. And we can only start by listening to what makes us unique in creation: the desire to be in relationship with others and with the Other. We are not made to live like atoms, but together.”
The Pontiff wants us to be able to listen in order to overcome our prejudices, for example, “about migrants and to melt the hardness of our hearts, we should try to listen to their stories. Give each of them a name and a story.”