Sunday 19 (A) – 2005: The sound of the silent God
In
the midst of the often deafening noise of life, God invites us to listen for his silence. When Yahweh comes to Elijah, he
does so in the “sound of a fine silence” (which our English text inaccurately translates as a “tiny whispering
sound”).
When Jesus, walking on the sea, first approaches the distraught apostles, he, too, is silent. With the ear
of the soul or of the heart, the Lord asks us to seek out and to recognize the sound of his silence. This is only possible
if we pray. It is prayer which renders our heart and soul familiar with the sounds and silences of God.
Yahweh manifests himself to Elijah in an unexpected way. Traditionally, wind, earthquake and fire were the
ways in which he did in fact show himself to the Israelites. But God only used those ways because the Jews were not yet mature
enough to understand that he was not a God who somehow dwelt in the elements.
Early in its religious development, Israel was only capable of considering Yahweh as one among
the other gods of the other nations. The deity or deities were then thought of as living within the cosmos and controlling
the elements. Israel often fell into the temptation of worshipping
these other gods.
For this reason Yahweh sent Elijah as his prophet par excellence: the prophet of the one, true and living
God. Elijah was very mature in his faith. He came to teach Israel
that, while the earth and its majestic forces could certainly be signs of God,
the true God actually transcended them. God did not need noise or brute force to reveal himself.
In fact, he could reveal himself more powerfully in silence, a silence which was not the mere absence of noise,
but a mysterious intensity of his presence. In today’s first reading, Elijah recognized immediately this “sound
of fine silence”, and knew that Yahweh was upon him.
Jesus, too, communicates a mysterious intensity of silent presence even in the midst of the storm which was
terrifying the apostles. In yet another scene of the Gospel, he sleeps while the storm rages before he commands it to be quiet.
In other words, Jesus is not absent when we are overwhelmed with noise, be it inner or outer. He fears no
storm. He allows no storm to take his place. Whether the storm be fear of death, our restless and insistent desire for power,
position, pleasure or money; whether it be materialism, atheism or any other -ism that can be named, Jesus will allow none
of these to usurp his godhead. Nor will he allow anything to take his place in our hearts - unless, we prevent him.
To become aware of his true presence, however, we need to have the courage to say to ourselves, “the
Lord of silent and intense presence is with me even in the heart of my storm (whatever that may be), and yet somehow he is
beyond it. I will go to him in defiance of its power; I will face down the overwhelming fear it seeks to instill in me; I
will refuse to bow down to its bogus claims to my adoration. I will step out of the limitations of my boat, and I will trustingly
and confidently come into the glorious, silent and intense presence of my Savior, the only, the almighty, the living God.”
That intensity of silence and presence is to be found above all in the Eucharist. In the consecrated host,
that same Jesus who walked on the sea and revealed himself to Elijah, is truly and substantially present.
In the humility, silence and availability of the host, the risen and ascended Lord of the universe is truly
present, independently of whether we believe it or not. We need to learn to hear and to be filled by the silence of the Eucharist,
by the intense presence of the sacred host.
Just as a lover can pick out the voice of his beloved in a great crowd, so we need to be able to sense the
presence of Christ deep within, and yet beyond, the noise of our lives.
Just as a husband or a wife feels in their home the presence of their spouse who has gone, we need to learn
to feel the presence of Jesus, even though, to our bodily eyes, he seems to have gone.
We need to cultivate silence in our lives. Apart from trying to observe it here in the Church because we are
trying to listen to and adore the Eucharist, we need also to seek it in our homes.
Identify a time when daily you can be silently present to the Lord, be it as individuals, couples or families.
Let there be a corner where a lighted candle or open bible reminds you through the day to withdraw from the noise and sit
silently in the intense presence of the Holy God.
It is said that you will never understand a friend’s words if you do not first understand his silences.
As an individual, couple or family, say a short prayer, read a few lines from the Gospel and then sit silently together and
listen for that fine silence of the living God.
Admit that there is restlessness on your heart before it is present in your actions, and come to the One who
gives us a rest the world cannot give, so that you can have peace and new perspective.
To school yourself in a Jesus-centered silence, is to give him the opening he needs to heal you, to evangelize
your deepest heart, to share with you his eternal joy, to fill you with hope, to reassure you with his love: in a word, to
redeem you.
It is difficult to overestimate the value of this quiet prayerfulness in the life of a Christian and its effects
on the quality of family life, parish life and society.
Of course, such prayerfulness should flow from and lead back to the Eucharist for, in it, Jesus seizes us,
not just by the hand, as he did Peter, but by the whole depth of our beautiful and hurting humanity.
If Elijah and Peter needed to pray and to encounter the living God in the silence of his presence, who are
we to say we have no such need? You may feel overwhelmed by the demands made on your time. I understand that.
But at what price do you continue to let that happen to yourself and your family? The feeling of being overwhelmed
takes on a life of its own almost independently of the many tasks we say we “must get done.” Sometimes we are
actually afraid not to be overwhelmed in case we no longer know who we are.
Overdoing can mean “underbeing.” That is, doing too much often means being too little. Divine
wisdom has woven the Sabbath into our week so that we can rest and rejoice with him in his work of creation and redemption,
in which we play our part.
Every day needs its little Sabbath, to remind us of why we do what we do and of who we are.
Try to make space in your lives for the fine sound of the divine silence, and you will walk over every stormy
sea without so much as a wet toe!
Msgr. Peter
Magee
Sunday, August 7th, 2005: Annunciation Parish, DC – 1.00 pm
