Newsletter - 19th December 2021
Listening and dialogue: paths of humanity
Listening is accepting to move forward on the path where the other calls us and offers us to meet him. Listening supposes being silent, enduring silence and contradiction, allowing time for speech to become clearer. Speech is afraid of silence. There is often a void, an absence, a dead silence. And yet what would speech be without silence, what would become of the musical notes that play without silences? Without silence, the word becomes chatter, while it is the word of life. If the human being resolved to turn his tongue seven times in his mouth before speaking, there would be less empty talk but a lot more dialogue. As Madeleine Delbrêl said: “When we love each other, we like to be together, and when we are together, we like to talk to each other. When we love each other, we like to listen to the other all alone, without other voices that disturb us. The danger that always awaits us is to lock the other into ready-made categories. We know in advance what he is going to say well before he speaks. Bernard Shaw said with his own humor: “the smartest man I know is my tailor. Every time he meets me, he takes my measurements again, while the others have measured me once and for all. Listening to someone is accepting to rediscover them anew every time.
Bishop Jean-Claude Boulanger, The Way to Nazareth, a daily spirituality, Desclée de Brouwer, 2002, pp. 59-60
Focus of the week
Children’s Nativity Drama
Children aged 4-8 years old are very welcome to sign up for our Nativity Drama which will take place on 24th December at 4pm Mass. Please register by emailing Chiara at cockfosterscatechist@rcdow.org.uk. Find out more - including rehearsal times and how to get involved - in the calendar.