Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Word from the Chaplain - Silence


“If you are silent, be silent out of love. If you speak, speak out of love”  

Dear Sursum Cordians,

Communication has become so easy today. We are the “communication generation” and what a variety of communications we have: texts, emails, tweets, comments, selfies, Snapchat, Facetime, WhatsApp, Skype… I’ll let you continue the litany. One click and I’m in direct communication with the other side of the planet. What a progress!
We are constantly immersed in this endless noise, a never-ending disturbance. We are the first beneficiary of such of progress, but also the first victims. Our language itself has been affected by this mentality, by a type of communication that is too often virtual; lacking of a true, reasonable, and realistic foundation. Communication has never been so effective… so effective to attack, detract, calumniate or belittle. This is so easy, so natural, so quick - a few words, no more than 2 or 3 three words, and the evil is done. The poison is injected. And yet, we have been asked to walk for 40 days with Christ in a silent desert. How much damage would be easily avoided if we only had the courage to keep our mouth shut and our tongue still. To postpone our little comment; waiting for our passion of anger, of hatred and impatience to calm down. You are all familiar with this famous quote from our Patron Saint: “A judicious silence is better than a truth said without any charity” (St. Francis de Sales)

Silence can become a virtuous behavior. Silence can become a meritorious action - even better, a meritorious habit. Fasting with our tongue is a means of sanctification, because it involves much self-denial and restraint, and even more than penance or sacrifice that we would choose. “In not speaking idle words and those which savor of the world or the things of the world”, says the great Doctor of the love of God, “We ought to hold in check all those things which keep us from loving or tending to the Sovereign Good. In this way, interior fasting accompanies exterior fasting. Keeping better silence, or at least keeping it more punctually than is usual; mortifying the tongue so that you will no longer speak of anything vain.” (St. Francis de Sales)

Saint Ambrose also gives us a good advice: “Is someone insulting you? Best to keep silent. You will keep yourself from sin, and people will think better of you.”

Not only exterior silence, but interior silence as well!  We all have a little “best friend”.  We all talk daily to this same “best friend” - sharing everything with him, telling him all our problems, constantly complaining to him. This “friend” which no one else hears… that no one else can talk to! No, we are not schizophrenic, but we all have this second little voice within ourselves, with whom we dialogue with. That little voice inside of us that criticizes, judges, detracts, calumnies, compares, slanders so easily all day long.  "I said, 'I will guard my ways that I may not sin with my tongue. I have set a guard to my mouth. 'I was mute and was humbled, and kept silence even from good things". Says Psalm 38. Additionally, we often complain about not being able to focus during our prayers. But let’s see:  Do we try to have the proper dispositions before praying? How do we prepare? Do not expect to be able to pray and listen to Jesus talking to your soul if, for instance, you come to Mass while listening to the radio. Or if, right before praying the rosary or doing your meditation, you were watching the TV, checking your emails, or spending time on social media. This constant noise of communication is a terrible obstacle to interior silence. Silence the exterior but also the interior - your imagination and your memory.  Take a few minutes of recollection, of calm silence, before trying to do any spiritual exercise. This will not be wasted time.

However, to keep silence can also become a vicious behavior. This is what we see in last Sunday’s Gospel: “At that time, Jesus was casting out a devil, and the same was dumb; and when He had cast out the devil, the dumb man spoke.” Commenting this passage, Don Gueranger says in his Liturgical Year: "It is an image of what happens to a sinner, who will not, or dare not, confess his sin. If he confessed it, and asked pardon, he would be delivered from the tyranny which now oppresses him. Alas! How many are there who are kept back, by a dumb devil, from making the Confession that would save them!” Indeed the silence of the soul is oppressive to them that refuse to acknowledge their sins; to them that refuse to confess, properly and with a contrite heart, their faults, because of human respect or because of negligence. Deus non irridetur: Make no mistake about it, You cannot cheat God!

“If you are silent, be silent out of love. If you speak, speak out of love” as the Great Saint Augustine teaches us.  It is necessary, while talking about silence, to talk about the necessity to listen. The more we keep all these external and internal noises quiet, the easier it will be to listen to the innumerable inspirations of the Holy Spirit. If you are trying to discern a vocation, trying to make a grave decision for the family, a decisive choice for your career, or to find the answer to your trials… keep silence and listen. We are in an era of the dictatorship of noise, but God only speaks in the silence of the soul. God’s first language is silence says Saint John of the Cross. Our generation is literally afraid, scared of silence, because they are afraid of God. They are afraid of what God will tell them through their conscience, being able to listen to this conversation of love He wants to establish between Him and every single soul. Let us not be afraid! Let us go joyfully in the desert to encounter Christ, to listen to Him, and to establish with Him this divine intimate dialogue.

Sermon for the Third Sunday of Lent

Recommended: Coming soon (April 15): Robert Cardinal Sarah: The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise.

Canon Jean-Baptiste Commins
National Sursum Corda Chaplain

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