Good Samaritan Sister, Carmel Posa, is rejoicing that a cochlear implant is restoring her hearing which was damaged by Meniere’s Disease – a development which is of no small significance to a woman who has devoted her life to deep listening, reports The Good Oil.
“It’s wonderful,” she says. “It’s amazing what technology can do these days. I’m hoping that when my brain learns to ‘re-hear’ all the sounds, it will be of great benefit to me and may even help with the Meniere’s Disease.”
Of course, as a woman of the Benedictine tradition, Carmel’s listening throughout her life has been both with her ears and with the “ear of her heart”, as St Benedict describes it in his Rule (RB, Prologue).
It has taken her on a search for an ever-deepening relationship with God and a sharing of that relationship with others, as a Good Samaritan Sister.
“The first word of the Rule is ‘Listen’, and I think that is what’s at the heart of it,” she says. “That’s what obedience is – listening to one another in love.
“And that’s what sustains me, the fact that I haven’t heard it all and I never will and so I have to keep listening if this life is going to have any sustaining power.
“Then that leads to your life changing because when you listen you hear things about yourself, about the world, about other people and that changes you. It makes you a new human being and that’s what I think people find attractive in Benedictine spirituality. They like who they’re becoming when they discover this pathway to God.”
Carmel’s own pathway to God has been characterised by that listening heart and a desire to share with others her deepening relationship with God.
Growing up in South Australia, Carmel attended Marymount College, a Good Samaritan school and lived on the same street as the Sisters. After leaving school, she earned a Science Degree and a Postgraduate Diploma in Nutrition and Dietetics.
FULL STORY A life devoted to deep listening (The Good Oil)