Silence can be more powerful than we think

One of my favorite Scripture verses for Christmas is from the Wisdom of Solomon: “For while gentle silence enveloped all things, and night in its swift course was now half gone, your all-powerful word leaped from heaven, from the royal throne.” (Wis. 18, 14-15) To me, those words perfectly describe the intense anticipation that we feel as we wait for Christmas Midnight Mass to begin. Of course, I know that for the past nine months, Jesus has been curled comfortably in Mary’s womb peacefully sucking his thumb, but there is still that breathless waiting for the instant when heaven leaps down to earth and we realize that he is here now! Emmanuel, forever inseparably one with us!

This irresistible irruption into our world of God who is love is breath-taking but that it happens in silence is awesome! Would we ever have known it had happened if the angels hadn’t announced it? Bethlehem only learned of it from the shepherds announcement of it. It happened in silence and that is suitable, for what sounds would be adequate to accompany such an arrival? Music and singing are for welcoming him, but how could anything but the wonder of silence be his escort? That silence whose richness surpasses all the music, all the poetry that can possibly exist. The silence that breathes best in darkness until it is broken by the explosion of welcoming song.

People are often afraid of silence. That’s understandable. There are different kinds of silence: there is the silence that binds friends together, but there is also the silence that shuts the other out. There is the full, rich silence where meaning is too vast to fit into words, and there is the empty silence of that void that is more horrible than death.

Maybe I appreciate silence because I am a contemplative nun and silence is part of our life, interspersed with liturgical prayer and community recreation. Maybe it’s because I seek to understand why St. John of the Cross wrote, “The Father spoke one Word, which was his Son, and this Word he speaks always in eternal silence, and in silence must it be heard by the soul.” That silence can be frightening, but in a good way. It is a world without a horizon and until we have ventured into it, we cannot imagine what it contains, yet we know by faith that it contains God, that it IS God. Blaise Pascal wrote, “The eternal silence of these infinite spaces terrifies me.” Yet he was drawn into these infinite spaces on his “Night of Fire” and then he could write, “GOD of Abraham, GOD of Isaac, GOD of Jacob, not of the philosophers and of the learned. Certitude. Certitude. Feeling. Joy. Peace. GOD of Jesus Christ. My God and your God. … Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy.”

Silent prayer is a sharing in the infinite word of God spoken in silence. That is why prayer is so powerful: it is speaking with God’s word. Silent prayer is not bound by space or time. St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Edith Stein, wrote, “Through the power of the cross you can be present wherever there is pain carried there by your compassionate charity, by that very charity which you draw from the divine heart.” This shows how powerful prayer can be. Apparently, some people feel threatened by it. Recently, several people have been arrested in England for praying silently near abortion clinics. You don’t need to be near someone for your prayer to be effective. Contemplative nuns never leave their monasteries, yet people write and phone and visit us to thank us for the results of our prayers. Prayer is an act of love and love always has a life-giving effect.

Silent prayer always brings peace and healing, and it can go everywhere. ”No speech, no word, no voice is heard yet their voice extends through all the earth.” By our prayer, we lift up all creation into the radiance of God’s love.

Sister Gabriela of the Incarnation is a member of the Discalced Carmelites order in Flemington. Learn more at www.flemingtoncarmel.org.