Lectio Divina — “listens”
Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time
Day 6 of the Season of Creation
1. Lectio — I Listen to the Word
> “If he listens to you, you have won over your brother.”
— Matthew 18:15
Today the Word seems almost to be a conversation about listening.
Ezekiel tells me that before I warn another person, I must first hear what God says. The Psalm warns me that hearing is useless if I harden my heart. Paul tells me what I should hear beneath everything else: “love one another.” The Alleluia tells me that God has entrusted to me not a message of accusation, but a message of reconciliation. And then Jesus tells me what reconciliation can look like: one person approaches another, speaks truthfully, and hopes that the other listens.
Yet the Gospel quietly turns the question around on me.
I can easily wonder, Why won’t he listen to me?
Jesus makes me wonder instead:
Do I listen?
Before I become Ezekiel’s watchman shouting a warning, have I first stood still long enough to hear God’s warning to me?
Perhaps winning over my brother begins not with becoming louder, but with becoming a man who listens.
—
2. Meditatio — The Silent Voice at The Glenn
While going about my chores at The Glenn, I am suddenly stopped in my path by a garter snake. Perhaps it is seeking water from the nearby dripping hose.
It says absolutely nothing.
And somehow, I listen.
That little encounter seems especially appropriate during the Season of Creation. Creation rarely argues its case. The snake does not deliver a lecture about water. The dry ground does not issue a report. The birds do not publish an encyclical. The sheep do not explain their thirst.
They simply exist before me.
And if I am attentive, their existence speaks.
Nature is filled with words of love, but I wonder how many of them I fail to hear amid constant noise, interminable distractions, and the cult of appearances. I can fill every empty moment with a screen, an opinion, a podcast, a post, a notification—or even my own internal argument—and then complain that God has stopped speaking.
Perhaps God has not stopped speaking.
Perhaps I have stopped listening.
The garter snake makes me think of today’s Gospel in another way. Jesus says, “If he listens to you, you have won over your brother.” I usually imagine myself as the one doing the talking. But what if today I am the brother who needs to be won over?
God may speak through Scripture. He may speak through another person whose words make me uncomfortable. He may speak through the Church. He may even speak through the silent needs of creation—the dripping hose, the thirsty animal, the exhausted soil, the precious water beneath my feet.
The great danger is not merely that I will fail to hear.
It is that I will hear and harden my heart.
So today I want the Psalm to become my examination of conscience:
If today I hear his voice, will I listen?
—
3. Oratio — Prayer
Lord Jesus,
You speak, yet so often I surround myself with noise.
Teach me to listen.
When Your voice comes through Scripture, soften my heart.
When it comes through another person, quiet my defensiveness.
When it comes through someone who disagrees with me, keep me from confusing listening with surrendering the truth.
When it comes through creation, give me the humility to recognize a word spoken without words.
As I walk The Glenn during this Season of Creation,
make me attentive to the creatures beneath my feet,
the birds above my head,
the sheep entrusted to my care,
the water flowing from my well,
and even the little snake beside the dripping hose.
Before I warn others, let me hear You.
Before I demand to be heard, let me listen.
Before I seek to win an argument, teach me to seek my brother.
Make me an instrument not of accusation, but of the reconciliation You have entrusted to us.
Amen.
—
4. Contemplatio — The Intelligence That Listens
The reflection from Magnifica humanitas gives today’s little garter snake an unexpected companion: artificial intelligence.
AI can appear extraordinarily knowledgeable, yet the document reminds me that even its designers possess only a limited understanding of everything happening within these systems. They establish conditions in which something is, in a sense, “cultivated,” while important aspects of its internal operation remain unknown.
That is a curious word for me here at The Glenn: cultivated.
I understand cultivation.
The farmer does not manufacture life. I can prepare soil, provide water, build fences, tend animals and create conditions for flourishing—but something ultimately remains beyond my command. Good husbandry therefore requires something more than technical power. It requires attention.
It requires that I listen.
And perhaps this is precisely where today’s Scripture must govern my relationship with technology. The danger is not simply that artificial intelligence will become powerful. The danger is that I will allow its extraordinary ability to generate words to crowd out my capacity to receive the Word.
AI can give me more information about a garter snake in seconds than my ancestors might have gathered in years. But no machine can perform my moral and spiritual discernment for me when I encounter that snake beside a dripping hose.
Technology can tell me what I am seeing.
It cannot relieve me of the responsibility of asking:
What is God asking me to hear?
That distinction seems essential during this Season of Creation. Scientific research and technological development are good and necessary. But they must be accompanied by the moral and spiritual discernment of a human person whose heart remains capable of wonder.
Perhaps, then, the great technological challenge is also an ancient spiritual challenge.
I have machines increasingly capable of speaking.
Am I becoming a human being increasingly capable of listening?
Today I will remember the garter snake that preached without making a sound. I will remember Ezekiel, who must hear before he warns; the Psalmist, who must hear without hardening his heart; Paul, who reduces the debt I owe my neighbor to love; and Jesus, who desires not victory over my brother, but reconciliation with him.
And when I encounter another creature, another person, another uncomfortable truth, or another whisper of God today, I will resist the urge immediately to speak.
I will listen.
Day 6 of the Season of Creation
