Thursday’s Spiritual Smoothie: Teach me to Listen

Posted by admin on February 4, 2010 under 4. Thursday's Spiritual Smoothie |

Hearts on Fire: Praying with Jesuits contains wonderful prayers, poems, and other resources rooted in Ignatian spirituality to accompany the Spiritual Exercises.  Edited by Michael Harter, SJ, it has gone through several re-prints and remains one of the resources I regularly use in my own prayer life after receiving it as a gift while an undergraduate.  The following prayer adapted by John Veltri, SJ, is one that I frequently return to and helps me remember the importance of listening.

Teach Me to Listen

Teach me to listen, O God,
to those nearest me,
my family, my friends, my co-workers.
Help me to be aware that no matter what words I hear,
the message is,
“Accept the person I am. Listen to me.”

Teach me to listen, my caring God,
to those far from me-
the whisper of the hopeless,
the plea of the forgotten,
the cry of the anguished.

Teach me to listen, O God my Mother,
to myself.
Help me to be less afraid
to trust the voice inside-
in the deepest part of me.

Teach me to listen, Holy Spirit,
for your voice-
in busyness and in boredom,
in certainty and in doubt,
in noise and in silence.

Teach me, Lord, to listen. Amen.

Sarah Heiman is Campus Minister for Education and Spiritual Life at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, CT.