“In his incarnation, Christ assured human limitations. Face to face with God’s silence, we are confronted with absolute love. And this great silence also explains the freedom left to man. God’s only power is to love silently. He is incapable of any oppressive force. God is love, and love cannot compel force, or oppress in order to be loved in return.” (#90 “The Power of Silence” Robert Cardinal Sarah)
As we move ever closer to Christmas these words strike a chord of hope and blessing in our hearts. If we think of the child Jesus, in the manger, surrounded by Mary and Joseph, the animals and the Magi, the shepherds and the angelic choirs. It is the supreme moment of silence we have all witnessed as a parent, sibling or stranger stares into the wonder of new life, new love and new hope that is every child born but most especially this child born of Mary the Incarnate Word of God.
It is a love drawing forth from us the desire for greater and greater peace. It is the hope daring us to go further and dream wondrously of the possibility of what could be in the plans of God’s love. It is the life challenging us to live in relationships of holiness and grace holding gently our most cherished love as we share the blessing given by God.
The challenge of a life of faith is to rediscover this blessing over and over again and to choose willingly to search out this blessing even in the messy, uneasy and injured parts of our life. “A device the Devil uses with great success when he wishes to cripple a worthy project is the stirring up of petty pride among those concerned. This is an evil which, by infecting even one or two, can nip in the bud the most promising enterprise for good.” (p 149 “Light in the Darkness: the Teaching of Father James Keller, M.M.) And what is this “worthy project”…for me it is first and foremost life, the life God gives to us. When we move out of the silence of the Incarnation and turn our eyes away from the silence of love to the distraction of the world we begin to mess with the “most promising enterprises for good” which is a life of blessing and peace. This is our temptation because the noise seems more appealing in the beginning than silence: it takes less time, less energy and less focus. It can be changed discarded and thrown away to be replaced with newer, louder more raucous noises where the lure of silence becomes a faint memory.
We must practice silence…
I love the way Matthew Kelly, the Catholic author and evangelist, phrases it…entering into the classroom of silence. I imagine this may not be his original phrase but each time I review some of the key needs in my life, a life that too often is filled with distractions and noise, the first on my list is always reentering the classroom of silence.
We must practice silence….
I practice silence in my Holy Hour each morning where I am able to discover moments of peace and blessing. Slowing my mind and allowing the stillness of silence to draw me closer to the eternal moment of love.
I practice silence as I cook and bake letting the rhythm of the moment, with the stirring, measuring and waiting be absorbed into the focus of creating something life sustaining.
I practice silence in listening to a story of joy, of hurt, or of blessing allowing the words to float freely without seeking to judge, fix or explain away the healing and growth coming through the laughter and tears.
I practice silence in the small pauses of the day, knowing the moment of silence will sustain the peace and grace between the moments of rush, the piles of notes and the ping of emails and the buzz of text messages which never seem to want peace.
If, as Cardinal Sarah notes, we have the courage to freely choose to be embraced in the silent love of God, then the promising enterprise of all life will wash away and heal the infection of sin and the great project of life will be one of true and endless grace filled love. Our challenge, especially as we rush towards Christmas, is to take time in silence with God and with family allowing the love to surround and impregnate our lives with the truth of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ in our hearts. Pray….pray….and pray.
God Bless
Fr. Mark