Something that many of us are uncomfortable with is silence. Nevertheless, silence is something which is very important for us to take advantage of. Saint Josemaria Escriva stated: “Silence is the door-keeper of the interior life.”
If we need a model of silence we have no further to look then Saint Jospeh. Throughout the course of Sacred Scripture he never uttered a word and was usually found asleep where God would come and speak with him.
Again from Saint Josemaria Escriva: “A change! You say you need a change!... opening your eyes wide so as to take in better the images of things, or almost closing them because you are short-sighted. Close them altogether! Have interior life, and you will see, in undreamt-of colour and relief, the wonders of a better world, of a new world: and you will draw close to God..., and know your weakness..., and be deified... with a deification which, by bringing you nearer to your Father, will make you more a brother of your fellow-men.”
It is the noise of this world which keeps us from the interior life. Our phone is always beeping and giving us updates, the TV is on producing noise even if we are not even paying attention to it, truly to be forced to enter into silence can be something which proves to be most challangening for us.
When we are forced to enter into silence we do not know what to do with it. Even here today we have the opportunity to pray before our Lord who is present with us in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. Here we will plunged into silence. It is important that we make use of this silence and throughout our life find ways to retreat from the noise of the world in order to enter into prayer.
For more reflection upon the importance of silence I recommend the book “The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise” by Cardinal Sarah. In it he states: “When we retreat from the noise of the world in silence, we gain a new perspective on the noise of the world. To retreat into silence is to come to know ourselves, to know our dignity.”
Let us thus be willing to undergo moments of silence throughout our life. Moments where we step away from our phones or the TV. Moments where we sit in the silence of the church instead of filling it with noise. Moments spent in prayer in our Perpetual Adoration Chapel. Truly through these periods of silence we will inter into the interior life. We must realize that to enter into the interior life is a life long process that cannot be acheived in a day.
