171. I still hear the sobbing voice of a seven-year-old Muslim child who, with tears in his eyes, was lamenting: “Does Allah exist? Why did he let my dad be killed? Why did he not do something to prevent this crime?” In his mysterious silence, God manifests himself in the tear shed by the child who suffers, and not in the order of the world that would justify this tear. God has his mysterious way of being close to us in our trials.
172. External manifestations are not always the best evidence of closeness. Our closest friends are sometimes far from us, which does not prevent them from loving us dearly. A father is not necessarily close to his children throughout their lives, but he remains no less concerned about them.
173. God is a Father who may seem distant. But this Father is as interested in us as if he were as close as possible to our heart. Sometimes, God lifts us to the top of the Cross, letting us grow tall in the trial in order to test our growth and our intimacy with him. It is necessary to undergo suffering as a part of our humanity. Contemplation of the Cross helps us. Teilhard de Chardin wrote in a letter: “If we fully understand the meaning of the Cross, we will no longer run the risk of finding life sad and ugly. We will only become more attentive to its incomprehensible seriousness.” And, prefacing the book that records the notes of his sister, who was an invalid throughout her life, he wrote: “O Marguerite, my sister, while I, given body and soul to the positive forces of the universe, was wandering over continents and oceans, my whole being passionately taken up in watching the rise and fall of all the earth’s tints and shades, you lay motionless, stretched out on your bed of sickness; silently, deep within yourself, you were transforming into light the world’s most grievous shadows. In the eyes of the Creator, which of us, tell me, which of us will have had the better part?”
This look from the Cross gives rise in us to a prayer similar to that of Jesus: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” (Lk 23:46).
174. I can imagine that a person who never prays is incapable of understanding God’s silent speech. Nevertheless, when we are lovers, we always notice the slightest gesture of the one whom we love. It is the same with prayer. If we are accustomed to praying often, we can grasp the meaning of God’s silence. There are signs that only two fiancés can understand. The person of prayer is also the only one to grasp the silent signs of affection that God sends him.
175. God is a discreet friend who comes to share joys, pains, and tears without expecting anything in return. We must believe in this friendship.
The Book of Revelation by Saint John speaks in a particularly poetic manner of the “silence in heaven”. What is the meaning of these lines that have given rise to so many interpretations?
176. In heaven, speech does not exist. There on high, the blessed communicate with each other without any words. There is a great silence of contemplation, communion, and love.
177. In the divine homeland, souls are completely united to God. They are nourished by the vision of him. Souls are completely taken by their love for God in absolute delight. There is a great silence because souls have no need for words in order to be united to God. Anguish, passions, fears, sorrows, jealousies, hatreds, and impulses disappear. Nothing exists except the unique heart-to-heart with God. The embrace of souls and God is eternal. Heaven is the heart of God. And this heart is silent forever. God is perfect tenderness that has no need of any speech in order to be diffused. Paradise is like a huge burning bush that is never consumed, however forcefully the love that burns there spreads. There above, love burns with an innocent flame, with a pure desire to love infinitely and to plunge into the intimate depth of the Trinity.
178. Benedict XVI expresses with striking clarity the importance of the love of God. In the very first lines of his encyclical Deus caritas est, he wrote:
We have come to believe in God’s love: in these words the Christian can express the fundamental decision of his life. Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction. Saint John’s Gospel describes that event in these words: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should. . . have eternal life” (Jn 3:16). In acknowledging the centrality of love, Christian faith has retained the core of Israel’s faith, while at the same time giving it new depth and breadth. The pious Jew prayed daily the words of the Book of Deuteronomy which expressed the heart of his existence: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your might” (6:4-5). Jesus united into a single precept this commandment of love for God and the commandment of love for neighbor found in the Book of Leviticus: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (19:18; cf. Mk 12:29-31). Since God has first loved us (cf. 1 Jn 4:10), love is now no longer a mere “command”; it is the response to the gift of love with which God draws near to us.
179. In the Book of Revelation by Saint John, there are some mysterious descriptions. The silence of heaven is a silence of love, prayer, offering, and adoration. Thus, “when the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. . . . And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer; and he was given much incense to mingle with the prayers of all the saints. . .; and the smoke of the incense rose with the prayers of the saints from the hand of the angel before God” (Rev 8:1, 3-4).
180. Saint Augustine’s prayer for the dead is particularly beautiful:
If you knew the gift of God and what heaven is. If you could hear the song of the angels from here and see me in the midst of them. If you could see unfolding before your eyes the horizons and eternal fields, the new paths where I walk! If, for a moment, you could contemplate as I do the beauty before which all beauties pale. What? You saw me, you loved me in the country of shadows, and you could not see me or love me in the country of immutable realities! Believe me, when death comes to break your bonds as it broke those that chained me and when, on a day that God knows and that he has determined, your soul comes into this heaven where mine has preceded, on that day you will see me again, you will find my affection purified. God forbid that upon entering a happier life, unfaithful to the memories and the true joys of my other life, I became less loving. You will see me again, then, transfigured into ecstasy and happiness, no longer awaiting death, but advancing moment to moment with you into new paths of Light and Life. Wipe away your tears, and weep no more if you love me.
181. To speak about a “silence in heaven” is a truly daring adventure. In certain journeys, it is wise and prudent to let oneself be guided by the experience of those who know the conditions and the geographical setting. What an extraordinary adventure to try to reflect on the silence of heaven! To set out on the route of this mystery, it is necessary to be roped to others. Alone we can only stammer. . .
182. The Fathers of the Church often reflected on these questions. They knew that silence is the supreme freedom of man with God. Saint Gregory the Great has some words of rare profundity on silence. In the Pastoral Rule, he wrote: “For the human mind, after the manner of water, when closed in, is collected unto higher levels, in that it seeks again the height from which it descended; and, when let loose, it falls away in that it disperses itself unprofitably through the lowest places. . . . For, because it has not the wall of silence, the city of the mind lies open to the darts of the foe” (III, 14).
183. I often think of my predecessor in the See of Conakry, Archbishop Raymond-Marie Tchidimbo. He remained for almost nine years in a sordid prison. It was forbidden for him to talk to anyone. In this silence, so terrible in appearance, like an icy and black insult, he had to turn to God in order to survive. The silence imposed by his jailers became his sole expression of love, his only offering to God, his only ladder to rise to heaven and converse with God, face to face, as a man speaks with his friend. Mysteriously, his dungeon allowed him to understand a little the great silence of
heaven. During the long months, he expected to be savagely murdered, to be electrocuted or beaten. He could understand that the mystery of evil, the mystery of suffering, and the mystery of silence are intimately connected. Thanks to an intimate encounter with God in the silence, he faced the daily trials with serenity. He knew that his life would not end in a miserable jail. He knew that his prison was like a plowed field; every day he sowed his life there as a seed is sown, fully aware that those who sow in tears will sing when they reap. He knew that he was at the door of the true life. Beyond the distress, beyond so many physical and moral humiliations, silence gave him strength, courage, humility, and selflessness.
184. Paradoxically, the silence of someone sentenced to death carries in it all sorts of hope. The condemned already sees on this earth the great silence of heaven. The silence of the abominations leads like a tunnel toward the hope of silence in God. Because, for the worst criminals, the only necessity is to push on the door of true silence and to put their hands into the silent hands of God: “This is the end, this is the consummation, the perfection, the peace, the joy of the Lord, the joy in the Holy Spirit, this is the silence in heaven.” The silence of prayer is like a Eucharistic silence, a silence of adoration, a silence in God.
185. Benedict XVI, in his homily during the Mass on the Feast of Corpus Domini, June 7, 2012, stated:
To be all together in prolonged silence before the Lord present in his Sacrament is one of the most genuine experiences of our being Church, which is accompanied complementarily by the celebration of the Eucharist, by listening to the word of God, by singing and by approaching the table of the Bread of Life together. Communion and contemplation cannot be separated, they go hand in hand. If I am truly to communicate with another person I must know him, I must be able to be in silence close to him, to listen to him and look at him lovingly. True love and true friendship are always nourished by the reciprocity of looks, of intense, eloquent silences full of respect and veneration, so that the encounter may be lived profoundly and personally rather than superficially.
This is the real anticipation of the silence of God that we are all called to know.
186. It may be enough to look with simplicity and admiration at the faces of the old monks, lined and burned by God’s silence, in order to approach such a beautiful mystery. The monks are humanly damaged, banished by the children of the world, and yet spiritually irradiated, marked by the beauty of Christ.
187. Mother Teresa had a face charred by God’s silences, but she bore within her and breathed love. By dint of remaining long hours before the burning flame of the Blessed Sacrament, her face was tanned, transformed by a daily face-to-face encounter with the Lord.
188. The aestheticism of silence does not depend on human factors; it is divine. The silence of God is an illumination, simple and sublime, little and grandiose.
Seen from this earth, eternity can seem long and silent. . .
189. The silence of eternity is the consequence of God’s infinite love. In heaven, we will be with Jesus, totally possessed by God and under the influence of the Holy Spirit. Man will no longer be capable of saying a single word. Prayer itself will have become impossible. It will become contemplation, a look of love and adoration. The Holy Spirit will inflame the souls who go to heaven. They will be completely given over to the Spirit.
190. On this earth, it is important to listen for the silences of the Holy Spirit. Saint Paul writes with assurance: “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words” (Rom 8:26).
191. In heaven, souls are united to the angels and saints through the Spirit. Then, there is no more speech. It is an endless silence, nestled in God’s love. The liturgy of eternity is silent; souls have nothing else to do but to join the choir of angels. They are exclusively in contemplation. Here below, to contemplate is already to be in silence. In heaven, this silence becomes a silence of fullness, in the vision of God. The silence of eternity is a silence of wonder and admiration. “And after my skin has been thus destroyed, then from my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another” (Job 19:26-27). Indeed, the silence of eternity is connected to the fullness of God; it is a Trinitarian silence.
192. The Church knows how difficult it is for man to understand the silence of eternity. Here on earth, there are few things that can make us grasp the immensity of divine love. During the Mass and the Eucharist, the consecration and the elevation are a small anticipation of the eternal silence. If this silence is authentic, we can glimpse the silence of heaven.
Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is a time when the quality of interior silence can allow us to enter a little into God’s silence. Adoration is a little drop of eternity.
The silence of eternity is a silence of love.
A prayer of Kierkegaard attempts to penetrate the understanding of God’s silence: “Never let us forget that You speak also when You are quiet; give us confidence, too, when we are awaiting Your coming, that You are quiet out of love just as You speak out of love. Thus, whether You are quiet or speak, You are always the same Father, the same paternal heart, whether You guide us by Your voice or raise us by Your silence.” Likewise, the silences of Christ can be difficult to understand. . . .
193. Jesus comes to this earth during a peaceful and silent night, while mankind is sleeping. Only the shepherds remain awake (Lk 2:8). His birth is surrounded by solitude and silence. For thirty years, no one hears him. Christ lives in Nazareth in great simplicity, buried in the silence and the humble workshop of Joseph the carpenter (Mt 13:55). It is certain that he already lives in prayer, penance, and interior recollection. This hidden life of Jesus is in the silent shadow of God. The Son of Mary lives constantly in the Beatific Vision, in profound communion, inseparably united to the Father.
194. The silence of Jesus is the very silence of God the Father. Did Jesus not say to Philip: “He who has seen me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?” (Jn 14:9-10). We must never grow weary of repeating this sentence by Saint John. It means that the unity of God and man in Jesus manifests in time the eternal unity of the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit. The silence of the Father is the silence of the Son; the voice of the Son is the voice of the Father. To hear Jesus is to hear the Father.
195. In Nazareth, God was constantly and silently with God. God spoke to God in silence. In examining this silence, men reenter the unfathomable, silent mystery of the Trinity.
196. Christ’s public life is rooted in and supported by the silent prayer of his hidden life. The silence of Christ, God present in a human body, is hidden in the silence of God. His earthly speech is inhabited by the silent speech of God.
The whole life of Jesus is wrapped in silence and mystery. If man wants to imitate Christ, it is enough for him to observe his silences.
The silence of the crib, the silence of Nazareth, the silence of the Cross, and the silence of the sealed tomb are one. The silences of Jesus are silences of poverty, humility, self-sacrifice, and abasement; it is the bottomless abyss of his kenosis, his self-emptying (Phil 2:7).
197. At the moment of his supreme sacrifice, the silence of Jesus is extremely poignant. He speaks only once to respond to Pilate, who says to him: “Are you the King of the Jews? What have you done?” Jesus answers: “My kingship is not of this world” (Jn 18:36). He includes in his kingdom Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, John the Baptist, all the saints in heaven, but also the community of his disciples who make up the Church. Although the latter are in the world, they are not of the world. Jesus tells Pilate three times that his kingdom is not of this world (Jn 18:36), because he notices that the latter desires to know the truth and to defend it. Pilate is convinced of the innocence of Jesus, but he is assaulted by the howls of hatred and the accusations that are pouring in. On learning that Jesus is a G
alilean, he decides to entrust him to Herod Antipas, tetrarch of the province of Galilee. The chief priests and the scribes are present, and they raise the stakes to elicit a sentence from Herod. Jesus is baselessly accused of all sorts of crimes. Among the grievances, there is the sacrilegious assertion that Jesus claims to destroy the Temple and to be the Son of God. In order to incite Herod against Jesus, they also protest loudly, claiming that Christ and John the Baptist have agreed to slander him because of his adulterous relationship with Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip.
In fact, Herod has taken Philip’s wife as his bride. In order to make the situation worse, they recall that Jesus has praised John the Baptist, defending him in a public speech (Mt 11:9-11). Moreover, Jesus has no respect for the tetrarch and has even insulted him, calling him a “fox” (Lk 13:32). The chief priests and the scribes are there; they accuse Jesus spitefully and relentlessly (Lk 23:10). Herod and his courtiers treat him with contempt and mock him (Lk 23:11). “But he made no answer” (Lk 23:9). Jesus is unwilling to respond to Herod because he sees him as a vicious, dissolute, cruel man who hates the truth, to the point of beheading John the Baptist, who was the voice of Jesus Christ, because he made the truth known to him. How then would the Lord not have kept silence before the one who has taken the life of his voice?
Herod sends Jesus back to Pilate; the latter again summons the high priests, the rulers, and the people (Lk 23:13), and says to them: “You brought me this man as one who was perverting the people; and after examining him before you, behold, I did not find this man guilty of any of your charges against him; neither did Herod, for he sent him back to us. Behold, nothing deserving death has been done by him; I will therefore chastise him and release him” (Lk 23:14-16). In the face of all the false accusations of the chief priests and the elders, Jesus makes no answer, because they are nothing but clamor, confusion, jealousy, and uncontrolled hatred (Mt 27:14). Jesus, in being silent, intends to show his contempt for the lies, for he is the truth, the light, and the only way that leads to Life. His cause does not need to be defended. We do not defend the truth and the light: their splendor is their own defense. This prompted Saint Ambrose (in his Commentary on the Gospel of Luke 10, 97) to say: “The Lord is accused and keeps silent. And it is with good reason that he keeps silent; it is because he has no need of defense. Those who try to defend themselves are those who fear being defeated. His silence meant not, as the saying goes, that he was giving consent, but rather that he thought too little of those accusations to dignify them with a response.”
The Power of Silence Page 11
