Listening to the Right Voice
THE WORD IN LENT 2026 - FIRST WEEK MONDAY
February
23 – Leviticus 19: 1-2, 11-18; Matthew 25: 31-46
Listening to the right voice, is the task proposed this week and
the Word this Sunday outlined to us that only right voice to be listened to is
the Voice of God. Or else, we shall be deceived by the voice of the serpent or
ruined by the negative voice of death. But the question is how do we listen to
the voice of God? The Word answers that today: by listening to the voice of the
other!
Listening to the voice of the other means to stop talking first –
that is the first level! We have so much to say, so much to publicise, so much
to trumpet around – all about ourselves. My wishes, my desires, my sufferings,
my difficulties, my sacrifices, my hard work, my successes, my praises and my
glories… we have to stop this whining and drowning in the flood of self-love
that the culture proposes today – and lent is simply a training lab for it.
Listening to the voice of the other means first of all hearing the
other… a second level. How can we think of listening unless we are first of
all, ready to hear. The book of
Leviticus invites us to hear the other before slandering, or passing a
judgement, or hating, or deciding to avenge him or her. It is important that we
place ourselves in the shoes of the other – the less fortunate, the exploited,
the weak, the vulnerable, the helpless other. But why should we do it? Because
the Lord does, and we are people of that God.
Listening to the voice of the other means empathising with the
other. It means something when we hear out someone sharing about themselves,
but it means totally something else to understand what some feels, when someone
shares! It is altogether another level to sense, intuit and understand what one
is going through even without the person saying it out in words – that requires
a listening from the heart! This is how we are called to listen, because that
is how God listens!
When the words from Leviticus says, be holy because the Lord your God is holy – what is meant is that we love as the Lord loves, in deeds and not just in words, that we listen as the Lord listens, from the heart not merely by the ears! By listening like the Lord, we listen to the Lord; by empathising with the other like the Lord, that we become like the Lord – be ye holy as thy Lord God is holy!