The Power of Silence

by Robert Cardinal Sarah,

  Pilate, surprised at the silence and serenity of Jesus, says to him: “Do you not hear how many things they testify against you?” (Mt 27:13). Jesus is so imperturbable, so calm, and so peaceful that one might think he does not hear the howling of the crowd, which is drunk with hatred. But recall that it is written: “Yes, I am like a man who does not hear, and in whose mouth are no rebukes. But for you, O Lord, do I wait; it is you, O Lord my God, who will answer. For I pray, ‘Only let them not rejoice over me, who boast against me when my foot slips!’ For I am ready to fall, and my pain is ever with me” (Ps 38:14-17).

  And so Pilate adds: “Have you no answer to make? See how many charges they bring against you” (Mk 15:4). And the Lord answers nothing, so that the governor is even more surprised (Mt 27:14). He does not understand the cause of such an extraordinary silence. He is confronted with God’s silence, in the midst of the howling of men who are drunk with irrational hatred! The priests, at least, ought to have remembered what was written by the prophet Isaiah:

  He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,

  yet he opened not his mouth;

  like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,

  and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,

  so he opened not his mouth.

  By oppression and judgment he was taken away;

  and as for his generation, who considered

  that he was cut off out of the land of the living,

  stricken for the transgression of my people?

  And they made his grave with the wicked

  and with a rich man in his death,

  although he had done no violence,

  and there was no deceit in his mouth. (Is 53:7-9)

  We have just experienced with Jesus before Pilate and Herod the excitement of the high priests, the elders, and the crowd. This event may seem to us surprising and scandalous, but it contains for us a doctrine and a teaching: in the school of Jesus, with our heart, understanding, and will wide open, let us allow God to introduce us into his silence and diligently learn to love and to live in this same silence.

  198. Today, the silences of Christian martyrs who will be massacred by the enemies of Christ imitate and prolong those of the Son of God. The martyrs of the first centuries, like those of our sad time, all show the same silent dignity. Silence then becomes their only speech, their only testimony, their last testament. The blood of martyrs is a seed, a cry, and a silent prayer that rises up to God.

  Christ started his public ministry by withdrawing into the desert for forty days. . .

  199. I have already mentioned Jesus’ withdrawal into a spiritual and mystical desert, that of the first thirty years of his life in Nazareth.

  It is important to stop for a moment at his stay in the desert of Judea, for forty days and forty nights, before his public life, as though to store up reserves of silence with a view to this immense mission that will lead him so far as to give his life. The Gospels explain how Jesus went frequently into the deserts, seeking solitude, calm, and nocturnal silence. In these moments, he felt the finger of God that drew him into these regions where he lived, allowed himself to be seen, and conversed with man, as a friend speaks to his friend. The man who possesses God in his heart and in his body is eager for silence. We must uproot ourselves from the world, from the crowd, and from all activity, even charitable works, in order to remain for long moments in the intimacy of God.

  200. Christ knows that God is never in the tormented noise of the world. He is not unaware of the terrible difficulties that will not fail to trouble his itinerary. In order to face the Cross, which is still far off, silence and solitude are a necessity. In Gethsemane, when the end is near and the Apostles are sleeping, incapable of understanding in depth the drama that is playing out, he remains one last night in silence, in prayer. In his final moments, nocturnal silence is Christ’s companion. The faithful must get used to praying at night, like Jesus. God carries out his works in the night. In the night, all movement is transformed and grows by God’s strength.

  201. For mankind, Christ’s silent recollection is a great lesson. From the crib to the Cross, silence is constantly present, because the problem of silence is a problem of love. Love is not expressed in words. It takes on flesh and becomes one and the same being with the one who loves in truth. Its strength is such that it leads us to give ourselves even unto death, unto the humble, silent, and pure gift of our life.

  If we want to prolong Christ’s work on this earth, it is necessary to love silence, solitude, and prayer.

  Is the death of Jesus therefore a great silence?

  202. For three days, the victory of darkness over light plunged the earth into a thick silence and a terrible anguish. The Messiah had died, and the silence of his death seemed to have had the last word. God himself seemed silent. His Son felt alone, abandoned to the torments of the Cross. This was the most terrible moment of his earthly life. He was on the verge of death. Jesus had lost his strength and his blood. When he was nothing more than an exhausted, dying man, he uttered a great cry.

  He was leaving this world, and his Father had not shown the slightest word of comfort. Certainly the Virgin Mary, his mother, and Saint John were at the foot of the Cross. But this sweet presence did not prevent him from shouting with all the strength that he had left: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mt 27:46). Jesus suffered from the apparent absence of God, but the confidence that he had always had in his Father did not fade. A few split seconds after this cry of pain, he prayed one last time to the Almighty for his executioners: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” And he expired, saying: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” (Lk 23:34, 46).

  203. On this earth, the only silence that must be sought is the one that belongs to God. Because the silence of God alone is victorious. The heavy silence of Christ’s death was of short duration, and it gave rise to life.

  204. The silence of Jesus’ death transforms, purifies, and appeases man. It causes him to be in communion with the sufferings and death of Christ, to come back fully into the divine life. This is the great silence of the Transfiguration because, “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If any one serves me, he must follow me” (Jn 12:24-26).

  205. Saint John insists on the moral solitude and isolation of Christ before his Passion. He is alone from the beginning because he is God. He is alone because nobody can understand him. Saint John says that a large number of disciples abandoned him because his teaching about the Eucharist and the demands of the Gospel was beyond them.

  Today, some priests treat the Eucharist with the utmost contempt. They see the Mass as a talkative banquet where Christians faithful to the teaching of Jesus, divorced-and-remarried persons, men and women in an adulterous situation, unbaptized tourists who participate in the Eucharistic celebrations of the large anonymous crowds can indiscriminately have access to the Body and Blood of Christ. The Church must examine with urgency the ecclesial and pastoral appropriateness of these immense Eucharistic celebrations made up of thousands and thousands of participants. There is a great danger of transforming the Eucharist, “the great mystery of faith”, into a vulgar county fair and of desecrating the Body and Precious Blood of Christ. The priests who distribute the sacred species while not knowing anyone and give the Body of Jesus to all, without distinguishing between Christians and non-Christians, participate in the desecration of the Holy Eucharistic Sacrifice. Those who exercise authority in the Church become culpable, by a form of voluntary complicity, in allowing the sacrilege and desecration of the Body of Christ to take place in these gigantic and ridiculous self-celebrations, where so few perceive that “you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Cor 11:26).

  Some priests unfaithful to the “memory” of Jesus insist more on the festive aspect and the fraternal d
imension of the Mass than on the bloody sacrifice of Christ on the Cross. The importance of interior dispositions and the necessity of reconciling ourselves with God by agreeing to let ourselves be purified by the sacrament of confession are no longer in fashion today. More and more, we conceal the warning of Saint Paul to the Corinthians: “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the chalice, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill” (1 Cor 11:26-30).

  How can we be recollected in silence and adoration, like Mary at the foot of the Cross, before the God who dies for our sins in the course of each of our Eucharists? How can we be silent and give thanks in the presence of Almighty God who suffers the Passion because of our rebellion, apathy, and infidelities?

  We live at the surface of ourselves too often to understand what we are celebrating. The lack of faith in the Eucharist, the Real Presence of Christ, can lead to sacrilege. Jesus is isolated by the growing hatred of the Pharisees, who form against him an increasingly stronger coalition, forcing his listeners to separate themselves from him. Some Christians are forming a coalition to separate Jesus and his doctrine from those who honestly seek the truth. He is more and more alone among men who hate him or do not know how to love him because they are incapable of knowing him as he is. But there will always be a little flock who will want to know him and love him.

  It is imperative for men to rediscover the Easter we celebrate in each of our Eucharists. The grace of Easter is a profound silence, an immense peace, and a pure taste in the soul. It is the taste of heaven, away from all disordered excitement. The Paschal vision does not consist in a rapture of the spirit; it is the silent discovery of God. If only the Mass could be, each morning, what it was on Golgotha and on Easter morning! If only the prayers could be as lucid, if the risen Christ could always shine in me in his Paschal simplicity. . .

  Easter marks the triumph of life over death, the victory of Christ’s silence over the great roar of hatred and falsehood. Christ enters into eternal silence. The Church must now continue the mission of Jesus through the daily suffering and death experienced in silence, prayer, supplication, and great fidelity.

  206. In a world where shouting and excitement of every kind unceasingly expand their empires, we will need more and more to contemplate and to learn to enter into Christ’s silence.

  The rejection of silence is a rejection of the love and life that come to us from Jesus.

  207. On May 2, 2010, on the occasion of the exposition of the Holy Shroud, Pope Benedict XVI went to the cathedral of Turin to venerate the relic there. He delivered an extraordinary meditation entitled “The Mystery of Holy Saturday”, in which he associated the mystery of Holy Saturday and the mystery of silence:

  One could say that the Shroud is the Icon of this mystery, the Icon of Holy Saturday. Indeed it is a winding-sheet that was wrapped round the body of a man who was crucified, corresponding in every way to what the Gospels tell us of Jesus who, crucified at about noon, died at about three o’clock in the afternoon. At nightfall, since it was Parasceve, that is, the eve of Holy Saturday, Joseph of Arimathea, a rich and authoritative member of the Sanhedrin, courageously asked Pontius Pilate for permission to bury Jesus in his new tomb which he had had hewn out in the rock not far from Golgotha. Having obtained permission, he bought a linen cloth, and after Jesus was taken down from the Cross, wrapped him in that shroud and buried him in that tomb (cf. Mk 15:42-46). This is what the Gospel of Saint Mark says, and the other Evangelists are in agreement with him. From that moment, Jesus remained in the tomb until dawn of the day after the Sabbath, and the Turin Shroud presents to us an image of how his body lay in the tomb during that period which was chronologically brief (about a day and a half), but immense, infinite in its value and in its significance.

  Holy Saturday is the day when God remains hidden, we read in an ancient Homily: “What has happened? Today the earth is shrouded in deep silence, deep silence and stillness, profound silence because the King sleeps. . . . God has died in the flesh, and has gone down to rouse the realm of the dead” (Homily on Holy Saturday, PG 43, 439). In the Creed, we profess that Jesus Christ was “crucified under Pontius Pilate, died and was buried. He descended to the dead. On the third day, he rose again.”

  Dear brothers and sisters, in our time, especially after having lived through the past century, humanity has become particularly sensitive to the mystery of Holy Saturday. The concealment of God is part of contemporary man’s spirituality, in an existential almost subconscious manner, like a void in the heart that has continued to grow larger and larger. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, Nietzsche wrote: “God is dead! And we killed him!” This famous saying is clearly taken almost literally from the Christian tradition. We often repeat it in the Way of the Cross, perhaps without being fully aware of what we are saying. After the two World Wars, the lagers and the gulags, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, our epoch has become increasingly a Holy Saturday: this day’s darkness challenges all who are wondering about life, and it challenges us believers in particular. We too have something to do with this darkness.

  Yet the death of the Son of God, Jesus of Nazareth, has an opposite aspect, totally positive, a source of comfort and hope. And this reminds me of the fact that the Holy Shroud acts as a “photographic” document, with both a “positive” and a “negative”. And, in fact, this is really how it is: the darkest mystery of faith is at the same time the most luminous sign of a never-ending hope. Holy Saturday is a “no man’s land” between the death and the Resurrection, but this “no man’s land” was entered by One, the Only One, who passed through it with the signs of his Passion for man’s sake: Passio Christi. Passio hominis. And the Shroud speaks to us precisely about this moment, testifying exactly to that unique and unrepeatable interval in the history of humanity and the universe in which God, in Jesus Christ, not only shared our dying but also our remaining in death: the most radical solidarity.

  In this “time-beyond-time”, Jesus Christ “descended to the dead”. What do these words mean? They mean that God, having made himself man, reached the point of entering man’s most extreme and absolute solitude, where not a ray of love enters, where total abandonment reigns without any word of comfort: “hell”. Jesus Christ, by remaining in death, passed beyond the door of this ultimate solitude to lead us too to cross it with him. We have all, at some point, felt the frightening sensation of abandonment, and that is what we fear most about death, just as when we were children we were afraid to be alone in the dark and could only be reassured by the presence of a person who loved us. Well, this is exactly what happened on Holy Saturday: the voice of God resounded in the realm of death. The unimaginable occurred: namely, Love penetrated “hell”. Even in the extreme darkness of the most absolute human loneliness we may hear a voice that calls us and find a hand that takes ours and leads us out. Human beings live because they are loved and can love; and if love even penetrated the realm of death, then life also even reached there. In the hour of supreme solitude we shall never be alone: Passio Christi. Passio hominis.

  This is the mystery of Holy Saturday! Truly from there, from the darkness of the death of the Son of God, the light of a new hope gleamed: the light of the Resurrection. And it seems to me that, looking at this sacred Cloth through the eyes of faith, one may perceive something of this light. Effectively, the Shroud was immersed in that profound darkness that was at the same time luminous; and I think that if thousands and thousands of people come to venerate it—without counting those who contemplate it through images—it is because they see in it not only darkness but also the light; not so much the defeat of life and of love, but rather victory, the victory of life over death, of love over h
atred. They indeed see the death of Jesus, but they also see his Resurrection; in the bosom of death, life is now vibrant, since love dwells within it. This is the power of the Shroud: from the face of this “Man of sorrows”, who carries with him the passion of man of every time and every place, our passions too, our sufferings, our difficulties and our sins—Passio Christi. Passio hominis—from this face a solemn majesty shines, a paradoxical lordship. This face, these hands and these feet, this side, this whole body speaks. It is itself a word we can hear in the silence. How does the Shroud speak? It speaks with blood, and blood is life! The Shroud is an Icon written in blood; the blood of a man who was scourged, crowned with thorns, crucified and whose right side was pierced. The Image impressed upon the Shroud is that of a dead man, but the blood speaks of his life. Every trace of blood speaks of love and of life. Especially that huge stain near his rib, made by the blood and water that flowed copiously from a great wound inflicted by the tip of a Roman spear. That blood and that water speak of life. It is like a spring that murmurs in the silence, and we can hear it, we can listen to it in the silence of Holy Saturday.