The Power of Silence

by Robert Cardinal Sarah,

  The Old Testament shows many episodes of violence; it is nevertheless the book that exalts the incomparable power of prayer. After they left Egypt and crossed the desert, the Hebrews encountered the Amalekites, a powerful tribe of Edomite nomads who occupied a territory corresponding to the south of Judea. According to the Bible, they were always hounding the Hebrews. During the fighting between the two peoples, Moses tried to involve God in the battle. He was his surest ally. Moses went up on the mountain, with Aaron and Hur, to beseech heaven. When he prayed in silence, with the support of his two companions who held up his hands so that they would be raised until sunset, the Hebrews prevailed. In contrast, when Moses lowered his arms, because of fatigue, the Amalekites prevailed (Ex 17:8-16). In the secret of prayer, God made his people victorious. Man’s strength brings only ephemeral triumphs. Only the silence of a heart-to-heart conversation with God is a solid rock.

  After David and Solomon, a major change took place gradually. David still had his hands covered with blood, but he was a man of silence, prayer, and peace. In him the coming of the Messiah was gradually wrought. His heart, which was full of mercy and respect for human life, was revealed miraculously on three occasions. When circumstances would have allowed him to kill Saul, he spared his life twice (1 Sam 24 and 26). He forgave Abigail’s husband, who had mistreated his messengers (1 Sam 25:14-38), and he bitterly wept over the death of Saul and Absalom, his son who had rebelled against him. David had a profound sense of sin and repentance; his heart was sincere and entirely commended to God. Psalm 51 is a marvelous testimony.

  Similarly, in the New Testament, the Gospel of Matthew lets us hear the voice of Rachel shortly after the birth of Jesus. It was at the time of the massacre of the infants in Bethlehem. Rachel weeps in silence so as to enter into hope and to hear the consolations that come from God: “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they were no more” (Mt 2:18). Rachel is unwilling to dry her tears, because she does not accept facile comfort, hackneyed words, and she is determined that death should not become a rhetorical topic or something that a speech would enable a person to cope with. Her tears are the herald of the tears of the women of Jerusalem who accompany the Crucified Lord because they know that by his death on the Cross, “God himself will be with them; he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away” (Rev 21:3-4).

  As President of the Pontifical Council Cor unum, in other words, the one in charge of the pope’s charitable work, under Benedict XVI and Francis, you faced many humanitarian catastrophes. How can one not cry out in rebellion in view of such tragedies?

  3.7. I always thought that there are two kinds of horrors. There is the deliberate barbarity perpetrated by men, for example in concentration camps, gulags, tortures, decapitations, all the cruelties of which man is sadly capable. If men were aware that a human being is in the image of God, they would not let themselves go to such extremes. How can anyone dare to destroy God’s work? Man’s hatred for man is a denial of God. To kill a human being or a human embryo, knowingly, voluntarily and deliberately, is an inexcusable crime. For God said: “Thou shalt not kill.” And this law is absolute.

  And then there are the effects of nature unleashed: typhoons, earthquakes, or tsunamis that put men in situations of extreme destitution. I have met individuals who had lost the fruits of a lifetime of work. But my experience showed me that men are strong enough to rebuild in the face of such catastrophes. They spontaneously turn their hearts to God to ask him to repair the misfortune. When his material life is reduced to nothing, man commends himself into God’s hands all the more forcefully. Why shout, weep, or groan? The loudest cry, the tears that are at the deepest part of our suffering, the most plaintive groaning, is the confident silence and the faint sigh that commend everything into God’s hands.

  In the psalms, the speech of the man who has placed himself in the presence of God is magnificent:

  I am utterly spent and crushed;

  I groan because of the tumult of my heart.

  Lord, all my longing is known to you,

  my sighing is not hidden from you. . . .

  Those who seek my life lay their snares,

  those who seek my hurt speak of ruin,

  and meditate treachery all the day long.

  But I am like a deaf man, I do not hear,

  like a mute man who does not open his mouth.

  Yes, I am like a man who does not hear,

  and in whose mouth are no rebukes. . . .

  Those who are my foes without cause are mighty,

  and many are those who hate me wrongfully.

  Those who render me evil for good

  are my adversaries because I follow after good.

  Do not forsake me, O Lord!

  O my God, be not far from me!

  Make haste to help me,

  O Lord, my salvation! (Ps 38:8-9, 12-14, 19-21)

  318. When man does violence to man, the rebuilding is always difficult, long, and hazardous. In evil, humanity is capable of unequaled refinement and imagination. And yet, Father Jacques Mourad, a Syro-Catholic priest who was held hostage by ISIS for almost five months, was able to say upon leaving that hell: “God gave me two things, silence and kindness.” I am quite impressed by these very sober, just words.

  In fact, silence can make it possible to survive in the most precarious situations. Tortures, ill treatment, and torments, however diabolical they may be, will start to be calmed by a silence that is directed toward God. In a mysterious but real way, he supports us by suffering with us. He is inseparably united to man in all his tribulations; it is one thing to rebel against God because he remained silent during our sufferings; it is another thing to entrust our suffering to him in silence, to offer it to him so that he might transform it into an instrument of salvation by associating it with Christ’s suffering.

  319. In the face of horror, there are no responses more important than prayer. Man silently turns his gaze toward God, who allows himself without fail to be moved by tears. The human struggle is necessary in order to combat the powers of evil. But silence is the mysteriously effective hidden instrument. How did the gulags of the Soviet Union fall? By the silent prayer of John Paul II and of the entire Church, sustained by Our Lady of Fatima. Sophisticated political strategies did not get the better of Marxist Communism. Prayer had the last word. The silence of the rosary obtained the unthinkable, and the Western bloc was quite surprised. . .

  320. There is a time for human action, which is often uncertain, and a time for silence in God, which is truly victorious. Far from vengeful, noisy, ideological rebellion, I believe in the fruitfulness of silence. Prayer and silence will save the world.

  Is it not so that poverty is the situation in which it is difficult to remain silent?

  321. Were not Jesus, Mary, and Joseph poor? Did they shout in protest against their poverty? So many monks and nuns, Mother Teresa of Calcutta and her missionary sisters: Are they not poor, and are they not silent? But it is not just those in consecrated life. In Africa, in Asia, and elsewhere, I have had the opportunity to meet with poor people who have great nobility and an incomparable dignity. Although they live in extreme material poverty, these people firmly believe in God and are radiant with joy, peace, and inner harmony. Man’s wealth is God. The most horrible and most inhumane poverty is the lack of God.

  322. The absence or the rejection of God is the most extreme human destitution. No one in this world can satisfy man’s desire. God alone satisfies and more than satisfies, to an infinite extent. In the Confessions, Saint Augustine writes:

  O, Lord. . . Thou hast made us for Thyself and our hearts are restless till they rest in Thee. . . . Who shall grant me to rest in Thee? By whose gift shalt Thou enter into my heart and fill it so compellingly that I shall turn no more to my sins but embrace Thee,
my only good? What art Thou to me? Have mercy, that I may tell. What rather am I to Thee, that Thou shouldst demand my love and if I do not love Thee be angry and threaten such great woes? Surely not to love Thee is already a great woe. For Thy mercies’ sake, O Lord my God, tell me what Thou art to me. Say unto my soul, I am Thy salvation. So speak that I may hear, Lord, my heart is listening; open it that it may hear Thee say to my soul I am Thy salvation. Hearing that word, let me come in haste to lay hold upon Thee. Hide not Thy face from me. Let me see Thy face even if I die, lest I die with longing to see it.

  323. I am surprised by the way in which poverty is understood in the world today, and even by many members of the Catholic Church. In the Bible, poverty is always a state that brings God and man closer together. The poor of Yahweh populate the Bible. Monasticism is an impulse toward God alone: the monk leads his life in poverty, chastity, and absolute obedience, and lives on God’s Word in silence. Perversely, the modern world has set for itself as an odd objective the eradication of poverty. Above all, there is a kind of disturbing confusion between misery and poverty. This way of picturing life is not in keeping with the language of revelation. Poverty corresponds to an idea that God has of man. God is poor, and he loves poor people. God is poor, because God is love, and love is poor. Someone who loves can be happy only in a total dependence on the beloved person. God is absolute poverty; in him there is no trace of possessiveness.

  324. In Deuteronomy we find these extraordinary words that allow us to understand the divine mind and will:

  You shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments, or not. And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know; that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but that man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord. (Deut 8:2-3)

  325. Poverty is a test and an austerity that God imposes on those who claim to live in his company. He wants to know the truth of their heart and their fidelity to his commandments. Poverty is a sign of love. It unburdens us of all that is heavy and that weighs down our progress toward what is essential. It helps us in the great contemporary battle to rediscover the true values of life.

  If you are faced with a decisive battle, look at young David when Goliath challenged the army of Israel. Compared with him, the Philistine Goliath was heavily armed. His height was six cubits and a span. On his head he had a bronze helmet. He was clothed in a coat of mail weighing five thousand shekels of bronze. He also wore greaves, and a javelin of bronze across his shoulder. His spearhead weighed six hundred shekels of iron, and a shield-bearer went before him. Saul wanted to clothe David with his armor. So he placed a helmet on his head and clothed him in a coat of mail and belted a sword on him. But David was unable to walk with all that weight. He said, “I cannot go with these.” And David put them off (1 Sam 17). If we are loaded down with an excess of wealth and material goods, if we do not strip ourselves of the ambitions and devices of the world, we will never be able to advance toward God, toward what is essential in our lives. Without the virtues of poverty, it is impossible to wage battle against the Prince of this earth.

  On the other hand, rebellion is quite a healthy reaction against misery. It is not possible to bear the destitution in which part of mankind is immersed. I want to make a distinction between poverty, a resemblance to God, “glory of the Church”, and misery, with its parade of misfortunes, against which rebellion is necessary. In Gaudium et Spes this distinction is presented quite clearly:

  Christians should cooperate willingly and wholeheartedly in establishing an international order that includes a genuine respect for all freedoms and amicable brotherhood between all. This is all the more pressing since the greater part of the world is still suffering from so much poverty that it is as if Christ Himself were crying out in these poor to beg the charity of the disciples. Do not let men, then, be scandalized because some countries with a majority of citizens who are counted as Christians have an abundance of wealth, whereas others are deprived of the necessities of life and are tormented with hunger, disease, and every kind of misery. The spirit of poverty and charity are the glory and witness of the Church of Christ. (GS 88.1)

  326. Poverty implies detachment and separation from anything superfluous that would be an obstacle to the growth of the interior life. Monks are poor, and they seek to get rid of worldly trappings. The greatest of the poor is God, who lives only in love.

  In poverty, we are absolutely dependent on the other.

  327. Unless we seek to suppress all the superficial aspects of our lives, we will never be united to God. By detaching ourselves from everything superfluous, we enter little by little into a form of silence. Throughout her life, Mother Teresa sought to live in great poverty so as to find God better in silence. Seeking God in her heart was the only wealth she had. She could spend hours before the Blessed Sacrament without uttering a single word. The nun drew her poverty from the humility of God. The Father possesses nothing, and Mother Teresa wanted to imitate him. She asked that her sisters be absolutely and sincerely detached from all material goods.

  328. The Church, too, must turn away from worldly languages and conventional talk, the better to find God in silence. In Nazareth, Jesus was conceived in the utmost poverty, but he already had the wealth of silence in God.

  If the Church talks too much, she falls into a form of ideological logorrhea.

  How are we to define what is superfluous, preventing us from encountering God in silence?

  329. Men have to try not to bother about goods that are not necessary. Things are superfluous if a person accumulates them unnecessarily, solely out of greed and avarice. A Christian has the obligation to imitate Christ: “though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich” (2 Cor 8:9). The vows of poverty taken by priests and religious correspond to this requirement. This has nothing to do with manifesting a sort of Jansenism that leads to self-hatred. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 5:3). Jesus does speak about detachment from all superfluous riches. “The poor have the good news preached to them”, Christ announces to John the Baptist in the Gospel of Luke (7:22), in order to express the openness of the poor to the Gospel and God’s special love for them.

  Likewise, in the Book of Revelation, Saint John exclaims: “You say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing; not knowing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked” (Rev 3:17). God always resists the powerful, and he gives his grace to the poor.

  The heart of the Christian faith lies in the poverty of a God who gives everything through love, going so far as to give his own life.

  If we manage to be with God in silence, we possess what is essential. Man does not live by bread alone, but by a word that comes from the mouth of God. The materialistic civilization that now prevails in the West favors nothing but immediate profit, economic success, and pointless leisure activities. In this domain of King Money, who could ever be interested in God’s silence? The Church would commit a fatal mistake if she exhausted herself in giving a sort of social face to the modern world that has been unleashed by free-market capitalism. The good of man is not exclusively material.

  330. The big difference between God and man hinges on the problem of possession. If a human being does not possess some material goods, he feels that he is nothing, lost, weak. Most of our troubles result from some form of lack of poverty. Man allows himself be caught in the nets of his lowest instincts to possess. He wants to accumulate material goods in order to satisfy himself and enjoy them. But these superfluous goods obstruct the eyes, shut the heart, and sap our spiritual energy. However, there are also many rich people who live an exceptional spiritual life with God and show immense generosity to the poor.

  Of course, we must for
cefully recall the legitimate right of peoples to have access to the material means of subsistence, the things that they need in order to live. In Africa, I know how often this principle is trampled on by those who govern. This is why there is an urgent need to evangelize the hearts, minds, and behavior of all my African brethren. In the Encyclical Letter Caritas in Veritate, Benedict XVI writes:

  Paul VI. . . taught that life in Christ is the first and principal factor of development and he entrusted us with the task of travelling the path of development with all our heart and all our intelligence, that is to say with the ardor of charity and the wisdom of truth. It is the primordial truth of God’s love. . . that opens our lives to gift and makes it possible to hope for a “development of the whole man and of all men”, to hope for progress “from less human conditions to those which are more human”, obtained by overcoming the difficulties that are inevitably encountered along the way. (CiV 8)

  Only the Gospel will be able to heal our human relations so as to establish societies characterized by fraternity and solidarity. God is at the heart of every person, at the center of all our activities, and even at the heart of our poverty and misery.

  331. But if we want to enter into God, it is necessary to be poor. For the Father has possessed nothing for all eternity. By nature, we are far from the infinite simplicity of God. Human ambition is reluctant to be destitute. Man lacks consistency. He prefers the noise of matter to the silence of love. Let us never forget this beatitude announced by Jesus: “Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God” (Lk 6:20).