The inner pilgrimage in the listening room
In the time of the Jubilee it is more than a pastoral initiative: it is a living parable of what the Church is called to be
3' min read
3' min read
The Jubilee is not just an event to be celebrated: it is a time when the human heart is invited to open up. Rome, with its basilicas, becomes an inner pilgrimage before it becomes a destination for footsteps. Among the most eloquent signs of this journey is now the 'listening room', set up in St Peter's for those seeking a friendly ear, a silence capable of welcoming without judging. Here the Church becomes a mother: it does not distribute pre-constituted answers, but offers the possibility of allowing the truest questions to emerge in fraternal conversation.
Never before has this been so urgent. According to the World Health Organisation, since the pandemic, anxiety and depression disorders have increased by about 25 % globally, regardless of age. In 2024, more than 16 million Italians reported medium or severe psychological disorders: this is about 6 % more than in 2022. According to the Ministry of Health's Mental Health Report 2023, every day 1,571 people visit Italian emergency rooms for mental disorders, with an estimated annual increase of about 26,000 accesses compared to 2022. Adolescents, adults, the elderly: all of them, in different ways, experience an unease that cannot be enclosed in statistics. It is a subdued cry that asks to be heard, even before solutions.
There is an image I would like to quote in this regard. The prophet Isaiah, as Michelangelo painted him in the colours of the Sistine Chapel, seems to bend over in deep listening: his large ears, 'sculpted' as if to gather silence, become a sign of total availability to the Word. Listening, in the biblical perspective, is never simply hearing: it is letting oneself be penetrated, it is welcoming the breath of God into one's heart. Isaiah reminds us that the ear is the first door of prophecy: "The Lord has opened my ear" (Is 50:5). Michelangelo translates into an image that inner openness, that attention that becomes obedience. Thus listening is not passivity, but a choice of conversion; it is recognising that the Word, to generate life, needs men and women who allow themselves to be surprised. Isaiah's ears, wide and tense, warn us: only those who really listen can speak for God. And prophecy always springs from a heart that has first been cradled in silence.
In the time of the Jubilee, the 'listening room' is more than a pastoral initiative: it is a living parable of what the Church is called to be. Those who enter it seek not only answers, but the courage to be welcomed; those who wait there know that the first step of reconciliation is to stop, to put down the noise, to stretch out the ear. It is an act that precedes every word, because mercy begins when we allow ourselves to be touched by the other person's story.
St Augustine had guessed this: 'Do not have your heart in your ears, but your ears in your heart'. True listening is not a technique, but an act of love. It is to make oneself close, to enter - at least for a moment - into the life of the other, allowing oneself to be provoked. The Jubilee asks this: to open the ears of the heart so that God's grace can still surprise us and generate in us the peace that the world awaits.
