Abstract

In part one of her arguing for contemplative listening as a fundamental act of the new evangelization, the author explicates the anthropological dimension of listening. Her analysis consists of four sections. Section one explains silence in terms of listening, for it is attentive perception to the presence of another, which can be described as love in the form of an obedient readiness to receive the other; listening, however, is more than two people actively willing to communicate: it is primarily an ontological reality that constitutes the human person as such. Section two claims that listening illustrates the nature of the person before it describes any action that one does; it relies upon Hans Urs von Balthasar’s analysis of the dialogue philosophers in his Theo-logic II: Truth of God. Section three considers Augustine’s notion of the internal word, which is a judgment that conforms to the Word (Jesus Christ); the author argues that to be in conformity with the Word indicates that the person fulfills himself as a word spoken by God in the Word, which suggests that listening constitutes the ontology of the human person. Section four shows that the human person’s natural desire for God postulates his obedient readiness to hear the Word Incarnate.