There are different kinds of
quiet.
Have you ever noticed how the
silence of the hour before dawn is different than that of midnight?
And think of the silences between
human beings.
Two people can be silent together,
and depending on the circumstance, the silence will be different:
It will be the angry silence that
follows a fight, or the nervous silence that discomforts strangers.
It may be the well-worn silence of
familiarity or the awkward silence of lovers who can say nothing in the face of
the mystery of loving each other.
It may be a bored silence, or a
thoughtful one; apathy or contemplation.
Silence can be passive: I have
nothing to say, so I say nothing.
Silence also can be active: I am
being quiet on purpose, to focus entirely on you.
There is no listening without
silence, and no dialogue.
There is no gazing without
silence, no attentiveness.
There is no wonder or awe without
a deep silence.
With God, there are different
kinds of silence, too.
There was that potent silence
before God said, "Let there be.. . ."
There was the guilty silence of
Adam and Eve when God asked, "Where were you when I called to you?"
There was the utter silence of the
Sabbath when Jesus rested in the tomb.
We are silent sometimes before
God, ashamed of what we have or haven't done.
We often are silent before God,
overtaken by wonder.
We try to be silent before God in
order to hear the word and ponder it in our hearts.
Alone and together, we practice
silence before God: a silence that begets dialogue, a silence that leads us to
listen, a silence that soars like awe and like love.
In the liturgy, we are silent,
silent together.
This is not an individual silence,
even though each of us—as best as each of us is able— is quiet.
This is not a passive silence,
even though we try to be as still as we can be.
We are silent together, actively
quiet, purposely still.
We're silent before the liturgy
begins, in order to be present to each other and thus find God. God is always
present to us; we forget this sometimes and fail to hear God amid our noisy
living.
So before we wrestle with God in
our rites, we are silent: Be still, and know that I am God.
We are silent at the words
"Let us pray."
These words begin the opening
prayer and the prayer after communion at Mass, as well as the prayers after the
psalms at Morning and Evening Prayer.
At this invitation, we pray, and
we pray hard, and we do so together, so that when the priest speaks, all of our
prayers are drawn to those words like metal shavings to a magnet.
One voice breaks the silence with words of
prayer, and one mighty voice, spoken from all our throats, seals that prayer:
"Amen!"
We are silent after readings of
scripture and after the homily.
How else can God speak to us?
How else are we to hear the divine
voice, not only echoing from long ago in ancient words brought back to life,
but speaking now, in this time, in the quiet that we provide here?
After the readings and the homily,
we are silent together because we are listening together for the voice on which
our very lives depend, the voice that calls us into being, the voice that bids
us to come out of our dumb tombs to live and to love again.
On occasion, instead of singing,
we may be silent when the gifts of money are gathered for the poor and for the
church, and when the gifts of bread and wine are brought to the altar.
And when all have been fed, when
all have drunk from the cup, again we are silent, caught up in the revery of
great mystery, standing together wide-eyed and satisfied, breathing quiet gratitude
for life breaking out everywhere, enjoying the quiet of this moment before an
eternal dawn, when God will be all in all and the final silence will be
ruptured with raucous, joyous cries of "Worthy! Worthy! Worthy!"
The liturgy's silences both tax
and nourish us.
They tire us because they are
active moments, concentrated periods of deliberate, attentive, awe-filled
stillness.
But they nourish us as well.
The moments of communal silence in
the liturgy plant seeds of peace in our souls, so that in the turmoil of
everyday life, we can find a still center inside and hear the voice of God.
So we are going to practice being
silent, being silent together.
We are going to recollect ourselves after
greeting each other and taking our seats.
We are going to pause at the
invitation, "Let us pray."
We are going to wait on God's
word—everybody from usher to choir member, sitting down, sitting still, for a
healthy period of silence after each reading from scripture and then after the
homily.
And again, after the paschal meal,
we will share a communion of quiet, a silence as joyful as our singing during
communion was exuberant.
At first, our silence will seem
awkward.
Throats will cough, seats will
creak, song sheets will rattle.
But if we stick to it, if we resist the
temptation to rush along, eventually our silence will deepen and lengthen.
We will come to appreciate the
chance to contemplate together, and the liturgy will become less a torrent of
words and more a sacred celebration, an encounter with God that has a rhythm of
song and speech and silence, of action and rest.
To do this and to do this well, we
need to practice being silent at home, alone and with those with whom we live.
We need to practice turning off
the television, the radio and the stereo.
We need to pause for a moment of
silence before beginning our prayers.
We need to stop and think for a
moment in the heat of an argument or a debate.
We need to greet the words of
others with the attentive silence of the good listener before we respond.
And sometimes we need to gaze into
each other's eyes, saying nothing, appreciating everything.
If we do these things, if we
practice being silent, being silent together, being silent with God, then when
death comes, we may be less afraid.
We may fear a little less the
terrible silence of the end, perhaps even be able to tentatively welcome it.
For we will know that death's
silence is but the momentary hush before the grand singing of the angels and
saints in the new Jerusalem, in whose choir of praise we will find our true
voice.
And then God will listen, silently
as a pleased lover for whom no words will do.
