The Power of Silence

by Robert Cardinal Sarah,

  208. Paradoxically, in the Gospels, Christ rarely asked his disciples to keep silent, except after Peter’s profession of faith (Mt 16:20)and at the time of the Transfiguration (Mt 17:1-13). He leads them instead to the desert to introduce them to silence and conversation with God. But he orders the storms, the winds, and the devils to be silent. Jesus imposes silence on everything that brings evil, vice, and death.

  209. In a homily given in Nazareth on January 5, 1964, Paul VI said:

  Nazareth is a kind of school where we may begin to discover what Christ’s life was like and even to understand his Gospel. . . . First, we learn from its silence: If only we could once again appreciate its great value. We need this wonderful state of mind, beset as we are by the cacophony of strident protests and conflicting claims so characteristic of these turbulent times. The silence of Nazareth should teach us how to meditate in peace and quiet, to reflect on the deeply spiritual, and to be open to the voice of God’s inner wisdom and the counsel of true teachers. Nazareth can teach us the value of study and preparation, of meditation, of a well-ordered personal spiritual life, and of silent prayer that is known only to God.

  210. Why are men so noisy during the liturgies while Christ’s prayer was silent? The words of the Son of God come from the heart, and the heart is silent. Why do we not know how to speak with a silent heart? The heart of Jesus does not speak. It radiates with love because its language comes from the divine depths.

  Can we talk about the silences of the Holy Spirit? In God or Nothing, you explain that the Spirit is often the great misunderstood one.

  211. The Holy Spirit has no face and no speech. He is silent by his divine nature. The Spirit acts in silence from all eternity. God speaks, Christ speaks, but the Holy Spirit is always expressed through the prophets, saints, and men of God.

  The Holy Spirit never makes noise. He leads to the truth by remaining the great intermediary. In silence, he leads mankind toward Christ by repeating his teaching. The only time where the Holy Spirit came with noise was at Pentecost, in order to reawaken sleeping mankind and to draw it from its torpor and sin:

  When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

  Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. (Acts 2:1-6)

  212. The Spirit dwells in the interior of man by regenerating him without manifest noise. The Spirit is a silent force. Free as the wind, the Spirit blows unpredictably. If we do not drive away his fire, he sets the world ablaze.

  213. In Against Heresies, Saint Irenaeus wrote: “[The Holy Spirit] has been entrusted to the Church,. . . that all members receiving it may be vivified; and the [means of] communion with Christ has been distributed throughout it, that is, the Holy Spirit.” The Spirit is communion.

  Today, the world is not sufficiently attentive to the Holy Spirit. Without attention to the Spirit, men are divided; they scatter, hate one another, and are divided as at Babel. Then wars are started, and sects abound. Without the Spirit, unbelief advances; with the Spirit, God comes close.

  I am sad to see how much we abuse the Holy Spirit. In their imagination and in disregard of the will that intends that we be one, some men, on their own initiative, create their own churches, their own theologies, and their own beliefs, which in fact are only petty subjective opinions. The Holy Spirit has no opinions. He only repeats what Christ taught us in order to lead to the whole truth.

  I say this in all seriousness: The absence of the Holy Spirit in the Church creates all the divisions. Where the Church is, there is the Spirit of God. Where the Spirit is, there is the Church.

  The Holy Spirit is a bond of communion between the Father and the Son. He is the breath of life that we cannot grasp. He is invisible, but fully present.

  214. When we are docile to the Holy Spirit, we are sure to be walking toward the truth because we are entirely subject to his inspirations. At the first Council of Jerusalem, thanks to the great silence of the Spirit, prayer, and fasting, the Apostles had the audacity to affirm the truth of God and not that of men (Acts 15). All the councils are placed under the protection of the Spirit. During conclaves, the Spirit points out God’s choice to the cardinals; the latter must submit to his will and not to human political strategies. If we thwart the Holy Spirit by miserable, petty human calculations, secret meetings, and media consultations, we run headlong into tragedy and we are gravediggers of the divine nature of the Church.

  215. The rejection of the Spirit is a blasphemy and a mortal sin because it is a matter of rejecting the truth. Without the Spirit, the Church is in danger of becoming a new tower of Babel. The different and deviant languages drown out the testament of the Son of God. Some pretentious, cynical ideologues threaten the truth of Jesus. Confusion, relativism, and chaos point toward a fatal prospect.

  In the Gospels, why is Mary so silent?

  216. The entire life of the Mother of Jesus is bathed in silence. Among the evangelists, only Luke and John have the Blessed Virgin actually speak.

  Saint Luke records the words of Mary in the account of the Annunciation:

  The angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.

  He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High;

  and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David,

  and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever;

  and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

  And Mary said to the angel, “How shall this be, since I have no husband?” And the angel said to her,

  “The Holy Spirit will come upon you,

  and the power of the Most High will overshadow you;

  therefore the child to be born will be called holy,

  the Son of God.

  And behold, your kinswoman Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For with God nothing will be impossible.” And Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her. (Lk 1:26-38)

  In L’Humble Présence, Maurice Zundel said that “silence is the only thing that reveals the depths of life.” The great works of God are the fruit of silence. God alone is witness of them and, along with him, those who see from within, who keep silence and live in the presence of the silent Word, like the Virgin Mary. For Zundel, Mary became a disciple of the Word:

  She listens, she consents, she gives herself, she loses herself in its depths. Every fiber of her being resounds with this appeal: “Let me hear your voice” (Song 2:14). Mary grants a hearing to the silent Word. Her flesh then can become the cradle of the Eternal Word. . . . In her, each man sees himself called to the same destiny: he becomes a dwelling of God, of the silent Word. Because if it is true that God created human nature for no other reason than to receive from it the Mother that he needed to be born, then every man is called, through the silent reception of the Word, to become the Temple of the Word, the “Basilica of silence”.

  217. In fact, Mary is so silent that the evangelists say little about the Mother of God. She is entirely absorbed by contemplation,
adoration, and prayer. She hides herself in her Son; she exists only for her Son. She disappears in her Son.

  218. Saint Luke mentions Mary’s words a second time when she loses the Child Jesus, then finds him again in the Temple among the doctors of the law:

  Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up according to custom; and when the feast was ended, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents did not know it, but supposing him to be in the company they went a day’s journey, and they sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintances; and when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem, seeking him. After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions; and all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. And when they saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been looking for you anxiously.” And he said to them, “How is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” And they did not understand the saying which he spoke to them. And he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things in her heart.

  And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man. (Lk 2:41-52)

  Saint John relates a single conversation of Mary in the episode of the wedding feast at Cana:

  There was a marriage at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there; Jesus also was invited to the marriage, with his disciples. When the wine failed, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “O woman, what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” Now six stone jars were standing there, for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the steward of the feast.” So they took it. When the steward of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, “Every man serves the good wine first; and when men have drunk freely, then the poor wine; but you have kept the good wine until now.” This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

  After this he went down to Capernaum, with his mother and his brethren and his disciples; and there they stayed for a few days. (Jn 2:1-12)

  In the Gospels of Mark and Matthew, there is no mention of Mary’s words.

  In God’s plan, the Virgin is inseparably bound up with the Word. The Word is God, and the Word is silent. She is completely under the influence of the Holy Spirit, who does not speak. The attitude of Mary is that of listening. She is completely turned to the word of the Son. She is consent, she is obedience.

  Mary does not speak. She simply wants to submit to God like a trusting child. Her fiat is total and joyful. She intends to receive God’s will through Jesus.

  The Mother of Jesus is lost in wonder and the silence of joy at the feet of the Child on Christmas; she suffers and is in anguish when Herod threatens the Infant God, at the foot of the Cross. She remains in the silence of consent, the kind that is summed up in this remarkable sentence: “I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38).

  219. From the Gospels, we do not know how Mary’s sorrow was manifested at the foot of the Cross. Art has depicted the Mother of God in the Stabat Mater Dolorosa, but the evangelists remain silent about her state of soul. Nevertheless, Mary is associated interiorly and totally in the mystery of redemption by the Cross.

  Mary’s fiat is a silence to which the Mother of Christ will remain faithful for eternity. Noiselessly, Mary offers her life and that of her Son to the Eternal Father. Noiselessly, she says fiat in advance to the death of Jesus. As a mother, she sees the terrible agony of Jesus, whose body is covered with wounds and bruises. She stands, clinging to the Cross, and the blood of her Son flows down on her face and arms. Imitating Jesus, Mary can say: “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord” (Jn 10:18). The Virgin is crucified and dies mystically with her Son.

  After the death of Christ, Mary supports the Apostles with her prayer; she asks that they may receive the strength and light of the Spirit. By her physical, prayerful, discreet presence, she engenders the Church and encourages her Son’s companions. When the Apostles are dispersed, she reconstitutes the community of disciples and builds up the Church in silence and prayer. Ever since the Upper Room, the Church has drawn her missionary breath in prayer and the acceptance of the Spirit.

  In the light of Pentecost, Mary is the first to understand the mystery of the Church. As Christ was born in poverty, in the silence of the night, and by the power of the Spirit, so too the Church could not come into existence in the midst of glories and worldly noise. The Spouse of Christ proceeds from the Holy Spirit, who bursts into the Upper Room where the community is in prayer with Mary.

  Mary’s fiat finds its completion in the emergence of the first Church through the power of the Spirit.

  220. During his general audience on November 22, 1995, John Paul II declared:

  Mary’s example enables the Church better to appreciate the value of silence. Mary’s silence is not only moderation in speech, but it is especially a wise capacity for remembering and embracing in a single gaze of faith the mystery of the Word made man and the events of his earthly life.

  It is this silence as acceptance of the Word, this ability to meditate on the mystery of Christ, that Mary passes on to believers. In a noisy world filled with messages of all kinds, her witness enables us to appreciate a spiritually rich silence and fosters a contemplative spirit.

  221. “Hear this faint, continuous noise that is silence. Listen to what we hear when nothing makes itself heard”, wrote Paul Valéry in Tel quel. This is the motto of the Virgin Mary. This is the motto of a strong woman. This is the motto of a silent woman.

  222. Pierre de Bérulle rightly wrote in his Oeuvres de piété: “This silence of the Virgin is not a silence of stammering and powerlessness. It is a silence of light and delight; it is a silence more eloquent in the praises of God than eloquence itself. It is a powerful and divine challenge in the order of grace.”

  In my country, at the end of the daily rosary, we often sing this hymn to Mary: “May your sweet presence enlighten us forever, O Virgin of silence. Give us your great peace.” From now on, Mary lives in the home of Saint John, as Jesus had wished on the Cross. We can imagine that she lived in silence and in a profound peace. She meditated often on the Passion of Jesus, the wonderful summit of their common missions. The more time passed, the more silent, recollected, and contemplative she became. She prayed and fasted. She joyfully accepted so many sacrifices in order to extend the Passion of her Son for the salvation of the world. Her prayer was a perpetual silence in God.

  III

  SILENCE, THE MYSTERY, AND THE SACRED

  We should learn not to give any name to God, lest we imagine that in so doing we have praised and exalted him as we should, for God is “above names” and ineffable.

  —Meister Eckhart, Sermons

  NICOLAS DIAT: What relation do you find between silence and the sacred?

  ROBERT CARDINAL SARAH:

  223. The notion of sacredness is abused, particularly in the West. In the countries that claim to be secular, emancipated from religion and from God, there is no longer any connection with the sacred. A certain secularized mentality attempts to be liberated from it. Some theologians assert that Christ, by his Incarnation, put an end to the distinction between sacred and profane. For others, God becomes so close to us that the category of the sacred is consequently outmoded. Thus, some in the Church still have
not managed to detach themselves from an entirely horizontal pastoral approach centered on social work and politics. In these assertions or these behaviors, there is a lot of naïveté and perhaps genuine pride.

  224. In June 2012, in his homily for the Feast of Corpus Christi, Benedict XVI solemnly declared: “[Christ] did not abolish the sacred but brought it to fulfillment, inaugurating a new form of worship, which is indeed fully spiritual but which, however, as long as we are journeying in time, still makes use of signs and rites. . . . Thanks to Christ, the sacred is truer, more intense and. . . also more demanding!”

  This is a serious question because what is at stake is our relation to God. Confronted with his grandeur, majesty, and beauty, how can we not be overcome with a joyous, holy fear? If we do not tremble before the divine transcendence, it is because we are damaged, all the way down to our human nature. I am astounded by the frivolousness, weakness, and vanity of so many discussions that claim to empty the sacred of all meaning. So-called enlightened theologians ought to enroll in the school of the people of God. The simplest faithful know that the sacred realities are one of their most precious treasures. Spontaneously they intuit that one can enter into communion with God only through an interior and exterior attitude marked by the sacred. The people are right; it would be arrogant to claim to have access to God without getting rid of a profane attitude and a non-religious, hedonistic paganism.

  225. In Africa, the sacred is something quite obvious for the Christian people, but also for believers of all religions. Many Westerners look down on the sacred as something infantile and superstitious, but this disdain results from the self-importance of spoiled children. I do not hesitate to say that the men of the Church who want to distance themselves from the sacred harm humanity by depriving it of loving communion with God.