When we are listened to, wounds from a recent or distant past find relief. This can be the beginning of a healing of the soul.
Listen in others to what makes them feel bad about themselves. Try to understand what lies beneath their hearts. And little by little, even in a ground ploughed up by trials, God's hope can be sensed, or at least a fine human hope.
It happens that, when we accompany another person, the one who listens is led to the essential themselves, although the other may be unaware of it.
Listen and keep on listening. . . . Those who make use of their intuition throughout their lifetime become able to understand almost without words those who come with something to confide. Listening in this way can contribute to a very broad vision of human beings, inhabited by fragility and radiance, by fullness and the void.
— Brother Roger of Taize , Brother Roger of Taize: Essential Writings by Marcello Fidanzio, editor, Brother Roger of Taize