{"id":3681,"date":"2025-03-21T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-21T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/?p=3681"},"modified":"2025-03-20T18:53:32","modified_gmt":"2025-03-20T18:53:32","slug":"listen-with-the-ear-of-your-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/2025\/03\/21\/listen-with-the-ear-of-your-heart\/benedictine-spirituality\/3681\/","title":{"rendered":"Listen with the ear of your heart."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Photo by Anastasiya Badun on unsplash.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Today we\u2019re celebrating the feast of the Passing of St Benedict, so for my Lent word I\u2019ve gone back to the wisdom of his Rule. The 17 word in my Lent lexicon is:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LISTEN<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Listen is the first word in the Rule of St Benedict. It takes me back to the basics of the Christian call. We\u2019re getting close to the halfway mark in Lent. I always think of this as a bit of a \u201cdead\u201d time in Lent. The novelty of our Lent practices has worn off, and we\u2019re still a long way from the impetus of Holy Week.

This means that it\u2019s the time when it\u2019s easiest to let our Lent practices slip. In such times I find it helpful to go back to the basics. St Benedict opens the Rule with these words:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cListen carefully to the master\u2019s instructions and attend to them with the ear of your heart.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The call to listen is at the heart of the Rule and of the gospel. We can\u2019t follow the call of the gospel unless we allow ourselves to hear it. For that to happen we need to create space. We live surrounded by 24 hour sound. This can be very distracting.

If we are to allow God the chance to speak to our hearts, we have to switch off some of the other sounds that surround us, even the good & helpful ones. We have to create a quiet space where we can hear the gentle, loving voice of God calling us to follow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is helping you to listen to God\u2019s voice this Lent?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today we\u2019re celebrating the feast of the Passing of St Benedict, so for my Lent word I\u2019ve gone back to the wisdom of his Rule. The 17 word in my Lent lexicon is: LISTEN Listen is the first word in the Rule of St Benedict. It takes me back to the basics of the Christian […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,494,239,271,336,537,264,492,245],"tags":[28,214,18,6,8,33,229,13,770,12,616,75,29,15,630,215,10],"class_list":["post-3681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-benedictine-spirituality","category-christ","category-gospel","category-lectio-divina","category-lent","category-liturgy","category-monastic-life","category-rule-of-st-benedict","category-saints","tag-benedictine","tag-benedictinespirituality","tag-challenge","tag-gospel","tag-hope","tag-kingdom","tag-kingdomvalues","tag-lectiodivina","tag-lent2025","tag-listen","tag-listening","tag-listeningheart","tag-love","tag-newlife","tag-passingofstbenedict","tag-ruleofstbenedict","tag-trust"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3681"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3687,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3681\/revisions\/3687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}