Silence and the Word

Christmas is a time for celebration; a celebration that very often could turn noisy, distracting and meaningless. But, in fact, the celebration of Christmas is for an event that happened so silently in history.

We celebrate the event commemorating that the Word became flesh: the Word of God - the Second Person of the Trinity - taking flesh among us. But how did this Word come into this world? The Word came to the world silently. The Word was born into the world in an almost obscurity. Far from the city lights... Far from the noise of the crowds... Far from the important people of the nation... Far from whatever that was `loud.` The Prince of Peace was not born in the royal palace, as the King`s son. He was born of a simple woman, in an obscure location, with a poor foster-father. He revealed himself to those who were considered the least, and to those who were not of the region. Moreover, he chose to remain silent for 30 long years after his coming to the world.

Don`t we need some silence to realize the importance of such an event in history - the revealing of the mystery of God... With so much noise around us, how often we fail to meditate the Word. How often do we forget to keep ``all these things`` in our hearts and treasure them.

We need silence. To listen to the Word we need silence. The `wordy` world around us teaches us that silence is empty and hollow, and we tend to believe it. Silence then is equated with weakness. Sometimes we are afraid of silence: because it could reveal to us our emptiness, our hollowness, our meaningless actions, our anger and lust, our restlessness, our sadness, our loneliness, our eccentrism [decentredness], ...  Silence could reveal to us our true selves. O how dangerous silence could be! Isn`t this why we our time for silence and meditation is filled with background music?!! Or is this why we tend to animate our silent community meditation with words and songs and even actions?

When there is no silence we tend to think that our words are important, and thus even neglect the true Word (of God).  Very often we realize that our words are not healing enough, that there is no depth in our words. But it is silence that offers this depth. A healing word can only be spoken in the context of profound silence and reflection. A comforting and compassionate word can be offered only in the context of a silent meditation of the Word of God. May the Blessed Virgin, Mother of our Saviour, teach us the importance of silence to store ``all these things`` in our hearts, to ponder and treasure them all our life.

(Published earlier at http://donboscoindia.com/english/bis/articles_default_ms.php?yr=2010&articleid=136&pno=1&articleidlist=,136,135,134,133,132,131,129,128,127,125,, 18 December 2010.)