Silence is Golden
This morning I heard a report about the number of young people who are experiencing premature hearing loss. The reason suggested for this was as the amount of noise that they are subjected to by the music in the clubs and the level of conversational noise in bars. This is not even to mention the general noise in our urban areas and cities from traffic and the crowds of people. The report went on to say that those who are exposed continuously to such noise levels not only have their hearing affected but it also has other serious physical and psychological effects.
This report served to remind me how important silence is for our well-being generally but especially in the spiritual dimension of our life. From the Psalms and throughout our sacred scriptures silence is not just advocated but it is seen as the very language of God. Following this all the great teachers of prayer strongly emphasize silence and stillness as essential elements in prayer. But silence is not just emphasized in spiritual circles. In 1948 the Swiss philosopher Max Picard wrote a book entitled The World of Silence in which he speaks of "the healing power of silence". He writes that "there is more help and healing in silence than in all the useful things… it strengthens the untouchable, it lessens the damage inflicted by exploitation. It makes things whole again." He also points out that "silence is not simply what happens when we stop talking, silence is nothing merely negative. it is a positive complete world in itself." In the book he bemoans the fact that we teach verbal communication in our schools - we are taught how to be noisy but no-one teaches us the value of silence or how to be silent. I suggest the same is true for prayer. For the most part we are taught how to say prayers of praise and intercession but little is said on the importance of just being quiet or the way of just sitting still in the world of God's silence.
Our liturgy should, according to the Instruction for the Roman Missal, at least begin to provide a space where those gathered together can sit in the solidarity of silence. But from my experience most of our liturgies are far too wordy and excessively noisy. The liturgical instructions make it quite clear that in several places in our celebration of Mass we should have significant spaces of silence. (The wording seems to imply that it should be at least a minute.) After the introductory rite and following the invitation for the Prayer of the Day is one place where there is a time of silence and similarly after each scripture reading there should be a pause for silence. Then after the homily we certainly need to just sit awhile and not feel as if we have been bombarded by a continuous onslaught of words. Indeed I would even go as far as to say that a future revision of the lectionary could well include a substantial cut in the length of many of the readings. It also underlines the fact of the importance of the reader who needs to be aware that they are the voice of Christ and that the Word Ministry is one of proclamation for which serious training needs to be given. But following this word fest it may be good to have the preparation of the altar in silence. The final real requirement is for a long silence after Communion. In our "fast food cafeteria" style masses however we driven by time constraints and parking problems, with an eye to the clock for people who need to rush and for the church to be ready for the next mass rather than being provided with life-giving opportunities for silence which end up as little more than a few seconds or are non-existent. Perhaps another reason is that silences can be embarrassing because no-one has taught them how to "simply be silent."
Over the years in my own life I have found from, not only our ancient Christian tradition but also from so many of the other great world religions, a really good way to still the body and the mind in silence. It is so simple and yet it is so hard but all that it needs is to just sit in an upright posture with the back straight and simply be aware of each breath as it comes into and out of our body. This way the mind and the body are united in the same activity and we are truly being attentive, in an attitude of gratitude, for the very gift of life itself. Sometimes just a gentle repetition of a word from the scripture or one of the divine names can also enable the silence of God to speak deeply to our innermost being.
Above all our spirit seems to demand that we need more than ever to take the effort and time to cease all the outward activity and noise that we may experience the silence of our God bringing us truly alive to the presence of the spirit who dwells in our hearts
