Keeping silent before God

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.