The Power of Silence Read online

  We have already heard that the Lord’s last words to his disciples on this earth were: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (cf. Mt 28:19). Make disciples and baptize them. . . . Why is it necessary to be baptized?. . . A first door opens if we read these words of the Lord carefully. The choice of the word “in the name of the Father” in the Greek text is very important: the Lord says “eis” and not “en”, that is, not “in the name” of the Trinity—as when we say that a vice-prefect speaks “on behalf” of the prefect, an ambassador speaks “on behalf” of the government: no. It says: “eis to onoma”, that is, an immersion into the name of the Trinity, a being inserted in the name of the Trinity [that is, a silent, invisible but real and life-giving] interpenetration of being in God and of our being, a being immersed in God the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit; just as it is in marriage, for example. Two people become one flesh, they become a new and unique reality with a new and unique name. . . . Consequently, being baptized means being united to God; in a unique, new existence we belong to God, we are immersed in God himself.

  It is the same with priestly ordination. In silence, through the sacrament of Holy Orders, a man becomes not only an alter Christus, another Christ, but much more: he is ipse Christus, Christ himself. At that moment nothing appears externally, but in the silence, in the depths of his being, there is a true and real identification with Christ. Saint Ambrose, in his treatise On the Mysteries, exhorts us, saying: “You saw there the deacon, you saw the priest, you saw the chief priest [i.e., the bishop]. Consider not the bodily forms, but the grace of the Mysteries.” Externally, as priests, we remain sinners, but in reality we are as though “transubstantiated” and configured to Christ himself. In the act of transubstantiation, the priest takes the role of Christ.

  10. The transubstantiation of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, the most extraordinary, the most momentous transformation, occurs in the utmost sacred silence. We hear the priest pronounce the words of the consecration, but the miracle of transubstantiation comes about imperceptibly, like all the greatest works of God. Silence is the law of the divine plans.

  11. God’s being has always been present in us in an absolute silence. And a human being’s own silence allows him to enter into a relationship with the Word that is at the bottom of his heart. Thus, in the desert, we do not speak. We listen in silence; man enters into a silence that is God.

  How can we define silence in its simplest meaning, in other words, the silence of everyday life? According to the Petit Robert [a French dictionary], silence is “the attitude of someone who refrains from speaking”. It refers to “the absence of noise or agitation, the state of a place where no sound can be heard”. Can silence be defined in no other way than by negation? Is the absence of speech, noise, or sound always silence? Similarly, is it not paradoxical to try to “speak” about silence in everyday life?

  12. Silence is not an absence. On the contrary, it is the manifestation of a presence, the most intense of all presences. In modern society, silence has come into disrepute; this is the symptom of a serious, worrisome illness. The real questions of life are posed in silence. Our blood flows through our veins without making any noise, and we can hear our heartbeats only in silence.

  13. On July 4, 2010, in a homily for the eighth centenary of the birth of Pope Celestine V, Benedict XVI gravely insisted on the fact that “we live in a society in which it seems that every space, every moment must be ‘filled’ with projects, activities and noise; there is often no time even to listen or to converse. Dear brothers and sisters, let us not fear to create silence, within and outside ourselves, if we wish to be able not only to become aware of God’s voice but also to make out the voice of the person beside us, the voices of others.” Benedict XVI and John Paul II often conferred a positive dimension on silence. Indeed, although it is associated with solitude and the desert, silence is by no means self-absorption or muteness, just as true speech is not garrulousness but, rather, a condition for being present to God, to neighbor, and to oneself.

  What is the correct understanding of exterior silence? “God is the friend of silence. See how nature—trees, flowers, grass—grows in silence; see the stars, the moon, and the sun, how they move in silence”, Saint Teresa of Calcutta said poetically [in her book A Gift for God].

  14. The episode of Jesus’ visit to the home of Martha and Mary, related by Saint Luke (Lk 10:38-42), eloquently illustrates the priceless character of silence in everyday life: “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things” (Lk 10:41). Jesus rebukes Martha, not for being busy in the kitchen—after all, she did have to prepare the meal—but for her inattentive interior attitude, betrayed by her annoyance with her sister. Since the days of Origen, some commentators have tended to heighten the contrast between the two women, to the point of seeing in them respectively the example of an active life that is too scattered and the model of the contemplative life that is lived out in silence, listening, and interior prayer. In reality, Jesus seems to sketch the outlines of a spiritual pedagogy: we should always make sure to be Mary before becoming Martha. Otherwise, we run the risk of becoming literally bogged down in activism and agitation, the unpleasant consequences of which emerge in the Gospel account: panic, fear of working without help, an inattentive interior attitude, annoyance like Martha’s toward her sister, the feeling that God is leaving us alone without intervening effectively. Thus, in speaking to Martha, Jesus says: “Mary has chosen the good portion” (Lk 10:42). He reminds her of the importance of “calming and quieting the soul” (see Ps 131:2) so as to listen to one’s heart. Christ tenderly invites her to stop so as to return to her heart, the place of true welcome and the dwelling place of God’s silent tenderness, from which she had been led away by the activity to which she was devoting herself so noisily. All activity must be preceded by an intense life of prayer, contemplation, seeking and listening to God’s will. In his Apostolic Letter Novo millennio ineunte, John Paul II writes: “It is important however that what we propose, with the help of God, should be profoundly rooted in contemplation and prayer. Ours is a time of continual movement which often leads to restlessness, with the risk of ‘doing for the sake of doing’. We must resist this temptation by trying ‘to be’ before trying ‘to do’.” This is the innermost, unchangeable desire of a monk. But it happens also to be the deepest aspiration of every person who seeks the Eternal One. For man can encounter God in truth only in silence and solitude, both interior and exterior.

  15. The more we are clothed in glory and honors, the more we are raised in dignity, the more we are invested with public responsibilities, prestige, and temporal offices, whether as laymen, priests, or bishops, the more we need to advance in humility and to cultivate carefully the sacred dimension of our interior life by constantly seeking to see the face of God in prayer, meditation, contemplation, and asceticism. It can happen that a good, pious priest, once he is raised to the episcopal dignity, quickly falls into mediocrity and a concern for worldly success. Overwhelmed by the weight of the duties that are incumbent on him, worried about his power, his authority, and the material needs of his office, he gradually runs out of steam. He manifests in his being and in his works a desire for promotion, a longing for prestige, and a spiritual degradation. He is harmful to himself and to the flock over which the Holy Spirit set him as guardian to feed the Church of God, which God acquired for himself by the blood of his own Son. We all run the danger of being preoccupied with worldly business and concerns if we neglect the interior life, prayer, the daily face-to-face encounter with God, the ascetical practices necessary for every contemplative and every person who wants to see the Eternal One and to live with him.

  16. Recall what Saint Gregory the Great wrote in a letter to Theoctista, the sister of the Byzantine Emperor Flavius Mauricius Tiberius, which is found in the collection Registrum Epistolarum. Faced with a tension between mon
astic life and his papal office, with all the social and political responsibilities that the latter involved, he bitterly spelled out in these terms his difficulties in harmonizing contemplation and action:

  I have lost the profound joys of my peace and quiet, and I seem to have risen externally, while falling internally. Wherefore, I deplore my expulsion far from the face of my Creator. For I was trying every day to move outside the world, outside the flesh, to drive all corporeal images from my mind’s eye and to regard the joys of Heaven. . . . “You cast them down while they were being raised up” [Ps 72(73):18]. For he did not say “You cast them down after they had been raised up,” but “while they were being raised up,” because the wicked and those who seem to rise up from outside, while propped up by a temporal office, collapse on the inside. And so their being raised up is itself their ruin. . . . Indeed there are many who know how to control external successes in such a way that they in no way collapse internally because of them. So it is written: “God does not despise the powerful; since he is powerful also [Job 36:5].”

  Saint Gregory underscores the conflict that he is experiencing; he wants to harmonize the contemplative life and the active life, symbolized by Mary and Martha. A deep tension between silence and monastic peace and his new temporal duties could be resolved only by intensifying his interior life and an intimate relationship with God.

  17. Similarly, in a letter to Raoul le Verd, Saint Bruno writes with his characteristic tact, commenting on Saint Luke:

  In any case, what benefits and divine exaltation the silence and solitude of the desert hold in store for those who love it, only those who have experienced it can know. For here men of strong will can enter into themselves and remain there as much as they like, diligently cultivating the seeds of virtue and eating the fruits of paradise with joy. Here they can acquire the eye that wounds the Bridegroom with love, by the limpidity of its gaze, and whose purity allows them to see God himself. Here they can observe a busy leisure and rest in quiet activity. Here also God crowns his athletes for their stern struggle with the hoped-for reward: a peace unknown to the world and joy in the Holy Spirit. . . . This life is the best part chosen by Mary, never to be taken away from her. . . . I could only wish, brother, that you too, had such. . . divine love. If only a love like this would take possession of you! Immediately, all the glory in the world would seem like so much dirt to you, whatever the smooth words and false attractions she offered to deceive you. Wealth and its concomitant anxieties you would cast off without a thought, as a burden to the freedom of the spirit. . . .

  For what could be more perverted, more reckless and contrary to nature and right order, than to love the creature more than the Creator, what passes away more than what lasts forever, or to seek rather the goods of earth than those of heaven?. . . It is rather divine love which proves itself the more useful, precisely to the extent that it is more in accord with right reason. For what could be [so] beneficial and right, so fitting and connatural to human nature as to love the good? Yet what other good can compare with God? Indeed, what other good is there besides God? [Hence] the soul that has attained some degree of holiness and has experienced in some small measure the incomparable loveliness, beauty and splendour of this good, is set on fire with love and cries out: “My soul is thirsting for God, the God of my life; when shall I enter and see the face of God?” (Ps 42[41]:2)

  The desire to see God is what urges us to love solitude and silence. For silence is where God dwells. He drapes himself in silence.

  In every era, this experience of an interior life and an intimate, loving relationship with God has remained indispensable for those who seek true happiness.

  18. Every day it is important to be silent so as to determine the outlines of one’s future action. The contemplative life is not the only state in which man must make the effort to leave his heart in silence.

  In everyday life, whether secular, civil, or religious, exterior silence is necessary. Thomas Merton wrote in The Sign of Jonas:

  Exterior Silence—its special necessity in our world in which there is so much noise and inane speech. As protest and reparation against the “sin” of noise.

  . . . Silence not a virtue, noise not a sin. True. But the turmoil and confusion and constant noise of modern society are the expression of the ambiance of its greatest sins—its godlessness, its despair. A world of propaganda, of endless argument, vituperation, criticism, or simply of chatter, is a world without anything to live for. . . .

  Catholics who associate themselves with that kind of noise, who enter into the Babel of tongues, become to some extent exiles from the city of God. (Mass becomes racket and confusion. Tension—babble. All prayer becomes exterior and interior noise—soulless and hasty repetition of rosary. . .).

  The Divine Office recited without recollection, without enthusiasm or fervor, or irregularly and sporadically, makes the heart lukewarm and kills the virginity of our love for God. Gradually our priestly ministry can become like the work of a well-digger who drills wells of stagnant water. By living in a world of noise and superficiality, we provoke God’s disappointment, and we cannot fail to hear the sadness and complaints of his heart. Thus says Yahweh: “I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness. . . . My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns, that can hold no water” (Jer 2:2, 13).

  Thomas Merton continues:

  Though it is true that we must know how to bear with noise, to have interior life, by exception here and there in midst of confusion. . . , yet to resign oneself to a situation in which a community is constantly overwhelmed with activity, noise of machines, etc., is an abuse.

  What to do? Those who love God should attempt to preserve or create an atmosphere in which He can be found. Christians should have quiet homes. Throw out television, if necessary—not everybody, but those who take this sort of thing seriously. . . .

  Let those who can stand a little silence find other people who like silence, and create silence and peace for one another. Bring up their kids not to yell so much. Children are naturally quiet—if they are left alone and not given the needle [i.e., teased] from the cradle upward, in order that they may develop into citizens of a state in which everybody yells and is yelled at.

  Provide people with places where they can go to be quiet—relax minds and hearts in the presence of God—chapels in the country, or in town also. Reading rooms, hermitages. Retreat houses without a constant ballyhoo of noisy “exercises”—they even yell the stations of the Cross, and not too far from [the Abbey of] Gethsemani either.

  The Trappist then concludes: “For many it would mean great renunciation and discipline to give up these sources of noise: but they know that is what they need. Afraid to do it because their neighbors would think they were bats.”

  Modern society can no longer do without the dictatorship of noise. It lulls us in an illusion of cheap democracy while snatching our freedom away with the subtle violence of the devil, that father of lies. But Jesus repeatedly tells us: “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free” (Jn 8:31-32).

  19. Interior silence is the end of judgments, passions, and desires. Once we have acquired interior silence, we can transport it with us into the world and pray everywhere. But just as interior asceticism cannot be obtained without concrete mortifications, it is absurd to speak about interior silence without exterior silence.

  Within silence there is a demand made on each one of us. Man controls his hours of activity if he knows how to enter into silence. The life of silence must be able to precede the active life.

  20. The silence of everyday life is an indispensable condition for living with others. Without the capacity for silence, man is incapable of hearing, loving, and understanding the people around him. Charity is born of silence. It proceeds from a silent heart that
is able to hear, to listen, and to welcome. Silence is a condition for otherness and a necessity if one is to understand himself. Without silence, there is neither rest nor serenity nor interior life. Silence is friendship and love, interior harmony and peace. Silence and peace have one and the same heartbeat.

  In the noise of everyday life there is always a certain agitation that is stirred up in man. Noise is never serene, and it is not conducive to understanding another person. How right Pascal was when he wrote in his Pensées: “All the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber.”

  On the merely physical level, man can find rest only in silence. The most beautiful things in life take place in silence. We can read or write when we have silence at our disposal.

  How is even one moment of prayer life imaginable apart from silence?

  21. Today, in a highly technological, busy world, how can we find silence? Noise wearies us, and we get the feeling that silence has become an unreachable oasis. How many people are obliged to work in a chaos that distresses and dehumanizes them? Cities have become noisy furnaces in which even nights are not spared the assault of noise.

  Without noise, postmodern man falls into a dull, insistent uneasiness. He is accustomed to permanent background noise, which sickens yet reassures him.

  Without noise, man is feverish, lost. Noise gives him security, like a drug on which he has become dependent. With its festive appearance, noise is a whirlwind that avoids facing itself. Agitation becomes a tranquilizer, a sedative, a morphine pump, a sort of reverie, an incoherent dream-world. But this noise is a dangerous, deceptive medicine, a diabolic lie that helps man avoid confronting himself in his interior emptiness. The awakening will necessarily be brutal.