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Newsletter
No.14
September 2004
The Art of Conversation
"...the feast of reason and the flow of soul" -- Alexander Pope
Communication is a holistic term that includes both verbal and non-verbal aspects of communication. Conversation as an important means of communication is an event, which allows the interlocutors to give shape and substance to their particular verbal exchange. The identity and role of the conversationalist is always significant in a conversation.
To illustrate the above let us take the case of a married couple who are seeking counselling. When a married couple who are seeking marriage counselling, insist that the counsellor be a pastoral minister, are in reality implying that they wish their counselling to have spiritual significance. In that specific situation, the counsellor takes on the spiritual role of the pastoral minister. It follows, that whatever approach the counselling sessions take, so long as the context of the relationship maintains this symbolic dynamic and preserves pastoral identity, it is pastoral counselling or pastoral conversation.
Let us explore conversation in the realm of the mass media. Mass media relies on freedom of speech. It is varied, pluralistic and controversial. The quality of media productions be they television, newsprint, radio, internet etc., range from the tittle-tattle to the more serious. It is a hotchpotch with some good, well-researched, objective, informative productions and
others that are bad, unreal, biased, thoughtless and lacking any creativity.
Can we really say that true and honest conversation is the order of the day on our airways,
publications and screens? The media-menu offers a variety of productions that are highly
amoral. Mass media shed any moral responsibility and place the onus of moral judgments on the one at the receiving end.
Are televiewers, readers, screen viewers and listeners able to separate the wheat from the chaff? To answer in the affirmative would be over optimistic. What we can say is that media-consumers are not all well educated to be critical thinkers, readers, listeners and viewers. In the main media-consumption is a passive activity.
David Tracy explains that in a true conversation partners move past self-consciousness and self-aggrandisement into joint reflection upon the subject matter. Understanding happens not because of logical watertight arguments,
or because of personal achievement or for one's satisfaction, but
it emerges as a gift in the give-and-take of the conversation.
Conversationalists, debaters, talkers, call them what you want, become what they signify only when they become present in the conversation and draw upon their deepest and richest resources in the pursuit of the truth...and the truth demands an admission of our own weakness and ignorance. It demands humility and vulnerability, acknowledging that we are never the sole possessors of truth and knowledge. Plato writes that dialogue is worth the trouble if you consider it a gain to be proved wrong; otherwise, it is better not to start.
John Courtney Murray in an essay on the Civilisation of the Pluralistic Society explains that barbarians are those who by definition cannot carry on a reasonable conversation. In addition, in a society, which is increasingly pluralistic there is more need than ever for dialogue rather than monologue, for civil argument rather than argument dominated by passion and prejudice.
A successful dialogue implies the balance between holding an opinion and being open to new and opposing views, being willing to modify that opinion. Contributing to a conversation with a completely blank mind or with totally fixed views are two extremes to be avoided. A contributor enters into dialogue with his own views and convictions, willing to share them but also willing to have them changed. If a person were to enter dialogue with
non-negotiable views, he/she will never really enter into the flow of the conversation and remain outside.
A true conversation or dialogue implies much more than the right backdrop, lights, make-up or bits and pieces of interviews. Paolo Freire explains that dialogue arises from an attitude of profound love...a love that seeks to know and then to act upon that knowledge, a love that respects the perspectives, insights, and experience of another.
Dialogue (and this goes for all types of human exchanges), presupposes faith in our common human capacity to seek the truth, and in daring to trust another to journey with us on the path to
truth.
Vincent Magri sj
A Personal/Group Exercise:
How do I rate, from 1 to 10, the quality of my conversations in my family (husband and wife, parents and children), neighbourhood, parish, community, place of work etc? Grade 1 being the lowest and 10 the highest. Discuss the result.
How do I judge my listening skills?
Am I prone to be emotional or rational, passive or active, open or biased, tolerant or prejudiced in a conversation?
How do I judge the quality of mass media productions in Malta?
Ignatian Maxims
63. When you have a task to accomplish and you are still not clear in mind what steps to take, you had better sleep over it and leave the decision for the morrow.
(Gonzales, Memoriale, M. I., Font. Narr., I, Mon. 13, n.163, pp.628-629.)
64. If you treat your poor bodies well, you will have strength enough for works of zeal and charity for the help and edification of your neighbour. If you don't, you grow weak and feeble, and are of little advantage to your neighbour.
(Letter to Adrian Adriaenessens, 12th May 1556, M.I., Epp. XI, pp.374-375)
65. Whoever loves poverty and is unwilling to feel want, or any of its effects, would be a very dainty poor man and would give the impression of one who loved the name rather than the reality, of one who loved rather in words than in the depth of his heart.
(Letter to the Community of Padua, 7th August, 1547, M.I., Epp. I, pp.572-577).
66. I have been thinking about what could cause me to become sad, and I found there was only one thing - if the Pope were completely to disband the Society of Jesus. And even in this case I think that if I were to recollect myself in prayer for a quarter of an hour, I would be as happy as before.
( Concalves da Camara, Memoriale, M.I.,Font. Narr.)
67. If a person wants to know how to be in charge over others and to how to exercise authority, that person needs first of all to become proficient in obedience himself.
(Letter to Gandia 29th July 1547 M.I. Epp, no 182, I 551-62)
Arthur Vella S.J.
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Jacob’s
Dream
Setting
Out on a Spiritual Journey
By
Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini
The
Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota 1992
ISBN
0-8146-2000-0
Jacob’s Dream (Gen 28,10-22 & Gen 35) is
a transcription of a series of meditations, which Cardinal
Carlo Maria Martini addressed to young people gathered in
Milan for a retreat in 1989. In this retreat we come across
Martini’s profound Biblical scholarship for personal
reflection. There are four main meditations in the book
given with great simplicity and depth. Martini
invites the retreatant to reflect the main points of the
story with one’s own experience. The
retreat tries to answer the important question where
am I. How
am I able to discern God’s will when faced with important
life decisions.
Martini’s
first meditation focuses on Jacob’s dream of the stairway.
Martini contrasts Jacob’s experience of being physically
lost in a deserted place with the inner experience of God in
the dream. This
gives clear bearings of where
he (Jacob) really is. Martini suggests that we too
should examine our visible
life co-ordinates – our relationships with others, our
body, study, work, money, future. He also leads us to
reflect on the meaning we give to God in our life.
The
second meditation focuses on why we lose or confuse our
coordinates. Martini presents very interesting insights and
portrays some contemporary situations of young people who
are unclear about their life coordinates. At the end of this meditation Martini briefly highlights a
meaningful way of preparing for the Sacrament of
Reconciliation.
In
the third meditation Martini invites us to reflect on the
visible markers which are fundamental of our inner
experience of God and which are important for our spiritual
journey in times of dryness. Martini gives further
reflection on the Eucharist, Scripture and the presence of
the Spirit. Interestingly, he introduces the idea of a rule
of life.
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The
last meditation invites young people to integrate their
experience of the retreat by urging them to keep God’s
faithfulness in their life as Jacob did. He
also implores them to be co-responsible for the entire
Church and the world.
During
the daily Eucharist Martini delivers interesting homilies.
Of a particular note is the one on the Song of Songs in the
feast of Mary Magdalene which develops the theme of our
feminine and masculine aspects of our spirituality.
As
Martini’s other spiritual books, Jacob’s
Dream is not simply a book to be read but to be prayed
through!
Christine Sammut
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The
European Union and its Christian patrimony
A Thought and a Prayer
“My
greatest concern for Europe is that she may preserve her
Christian inheritance and have it bear fruit” (Pope John
Paul II in his address to members of the De Gasperi
Foundation on Feb 23, 2002).
Europe’s “deepest soul” is
“Judaic-Christian.” Yet, since the 1700’s, there has developed “a
process of secularization… aiming at excluding God and
Christianity from every expression of human life.”
The Pope asked, “Is it not insignificant… that
every explicit reference to religions, and consequently also
to Christianity, has been removed from the European
Charter?”
Such
an exclusion and denial can only undermine Europe’s soul,
its stated desire “for peace and prosperity.”
For, the Holy Father said, “it is by virtue of the
Christian message that the great human values have been
professed: a person’s dignity and inviolability, freedom
of conscience, the dignity of work and workers, every
person’s right to a dignified and secure life and hence to
participation in the wealth of the earth, destined by God
for the enjoyment of all human beings.”
We
offer this prayer that Europe may not lose its soul.
May Europe and all countries, which share her
Christian heritage, acknowledge God and the moral law He has
written in our hearts.
1.
How
are the rights we value so much grounded in Christianity?
2.
How
can I value my own or my Country’s European heritage?
You
are the salt of the earth (Mt. 5, 13-16).
Pray
for government leaders (1Tim 2, 1-3).
We
would like to remind you that the Centre for Ignatian
Spirituality offers personal spiritual direction to all
those who would like to have any kind of spiritual
experience like Ignatian retreats in every day life.
Retreats can be tailored according to the needs and
circumstances of the retreatant. CIS can call on experienced
Jesuits, other religious and trained lay people to accompany
retreatants through these experiences.
Anyone
interested can contact the Director on 21827323 or 99864561
or email vince@maltajesuitretreats.com.
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