Antonio, Karlo Jennuel R.
My Reflection
There is one particular excerpt from the Holy Rule of St. Benedict that I can never forget; “listen with the ear of your heart”.
All my life, I never truly understood what listening really was. Well, not until I’ve learned the first words uttered by our Holy Father Benedict in the prologue of his Holy Rules. Those words are really life-changing for me, because it has given me a different perspective on listening. I mean, I’ve been putting it into practice. I don’t only commit to memory the things that my parents, or professors, have told me to do; I make sure that I also commit those to my heart and religiously obey their words –swearing my entire life to fulfill such commands.
More than the respect I owe my parents (or my professors for that matter), using your heart for listening also entails deeper understanding. Since I began practicing this time-old virtue of St. Benedict, I tend to not only remember more, but to deeply understand things that are being told to me, In a very superficial level, I can now easily follow directions or instructions being relied to me.
But more than all of those, what I get more from listening with the ears of my heart is the pure bliss and contentment whenever I say the people whom I’ve listened to find satisfaction from what I’ve done for them. The moment when I report to my parents that I’ve done exactly what they told me to do, I really can’t help but feel happy when I see them happy because of my obedience to them. Parallelizing it to God, I know for a fact that He feels the same way my parents feel when I obey His words. If already really happy to know that I’ve made my fellow mortals happy, how much more if I made my Creator happy?
My Reflection
There is one particular excerpt from the Holy Rule of St. Benedict that I can never forget; “listen with the ear of your heart”.
All my life, I never truly understood what listening really was. Well, not until I’ve learned the first words uttered by our Holy Father Benedict in the prologue of his Holy Rules. Those words are really life-changing for me, because it has given me a different perspective on listening. I mean, I’ve been putting it into practice. I don’t only commit to memory the things that my parents, or professors, have told me to do; I make sure that I also commit those to my heart and religiously obey their words –swearing my entire life to fulfill such commands.
More than the respect I owe my parents (or my professors for that matter), using your heart for listening also entails deeper understanding. Since I began practicing this time-old virtue of St. Benedict, I tend to not only remember more, but to deeply understand things that are being told to me, In a very superficial level, I can now easily follow directions or instructions being relied to me.
But more than all of those, what I get more from listening with the ears of my heart is the pure bliss and contentment whenever I say the people whom I’ve listened to find satisfaction from what I’ve done for them. The moment when I report to my parents that I’ve done exactly what they told me to do, I really can’t help but feel happy when I see them happy because of my obedience to them. Parallelizing it to God, I know for a fact that He feels the same way my parents feel when I obey His words. If already really happy to know that I’ve made my fellow mortals happy, how much more if I made my Creator happy?
