Silence and Stillness

Sunday with the Octave of the Nativity
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  “When peaceful stillness encompassed everything and the night in its swift course was half spent, Your all-powerful word from heaven’s royal throne leapt into the doomed land.”  This is the translation of our Introit today, and it’s one of my favorite verses connected with our liturgical celebration of the Nativity of our Lord.  Which is funny, because it comes from the Book of Wisdom in the Old Testament.  And it forms part of a pericope about the Chosen People, while they were still enslaved in Egypt.  In the New American Bible, the title of this particular passage is: “Fifth Example: Death of the Egyptian Firstborn; the Israelites Are Spared.”  That may seem very fitting as we also commemorate the Holy Innocents today, but this Introit is not for the Holy Innocents, but for the Sunday within the Octave.
    But, the Church reads these two particular verses, numbers fourteen and fifteen, in light of the Nativity, when the All-Powerful Word, Jesus Christ, came to us from heaven in the middle of the night, into the land of sinners doomed to eternal death.  Like so many passages from the Old Testament, we didn’t come to know the true meaning, even though we could understand these verses in light of the plagues of Egypt, which is how the human author, no doubt, intended it, while the Divine Author intended so much more.

    Msgr. Romano Guardini, a magnificent Catholic teacher and author from the mid-twentieth century, has a beautiful Christmas meditation precisely on this passage.  And he makes the point that the great works of God happen in silence and stillness.  We can point to the creation of the universe, which happened without anyone else other than God there.  We can point to the Nativity of the Lord, which happened in a backwater part of the Roman Empire without any great human celebration.  We can point to the Resurrection of Christ, which happened without any human witnesses, except the guards at the tomb.  The great works of God happen in silence.  We can even point to the creative cooperation in human conception.  While the act which brings about children might not be so silent in terms of the spousal union, the moment the sperm fertilizes the egg happens in silence, without the parents knowing for some weeks after.  
    So if we wish to see the great things of God, we need to cultivate periods of silence in our lives.  Now, I’m saying this to a group of families who, each in their own way, have taken seriously God’s call to be fruitful and multiply.  Whether you have one child or ten children, you probably dream about silence for any amount of time, rather than the din of one or more children crying, screaming, or just making noise seemingly for noise’s sake.  Some of you parents may be thinking: “yeah, right, Father, I don’t get silence in my life; I have kids.”  
    But the silence in which the great things of God happens cannot simply equate with the lack of noise.  I love that we have so many children at Mass, and applaud you parents for bringing them to Mass, even when it’s very difficult and even when you spend half or more of Mass trying to keep them quiet, or keep them from crawling away, or taking them to the bathroom, etc.  Do I notice the noise?  I’m not deaf.  But it’s a great blessing.  St. Pius X, which closed in 2024 while I was pastor, had no noise because it had practically no kids.  If you don’t hear cryin’ your parish is dyin’.  
    But the noise generally doesn’t distract me.  As I’m celebrating Mass, I may hear it, but I can still stay focused on what’s happening and how I’m leading the worship of God by His Church.  And I don’t mean the way a husband says he’s listening to his wife while he’s watching a football game (because, generally speaking, he’s not really listening to you at that point).  I can create an atmosphere of silence even with the noise of children, bells, crashing kneelers, etc., by focusing on God.  And I think that’s not impossible for parents, either, though it does take practice.

    But even if you don’t feel you can find silence there, I know that there exists moments of silence that you can take advantage of each day.  The question is do we protect that time for God and prayer, even if it’s only the five minutes between a child starting to sleep and a child waking?  Or do we decide that doom scrolling, or finding every funny cat video on YouTube, or catching up on Facebook, or seeing what political parties are up to seems better to us than a quick five minutes of prayer?  As a parent, your vocation does not consist in praying like a monk or nun in a cloistered monastery or convent.  But God does want you to take even the few minutes you have throughout the day, or at the end of the day, after the kids are asleep, for Him, rather than simply looking to social media, the Internet, or the television to numb your minds.  It doesn’t mean we can’t find a funny cat video at all, or that we can never watch our favorite episode of “The Office,” but do we capitalize on the time that we have and utilize it for growing in our relationship with God?
    When God appeared to Elijah, He didn’t come in an earthquake, a fire, or a storm.  He came in a whisper.  God so often works in silence, an reveals Himself in stillness.  If we distract ourselves with noise (and I’m not talking about kids), we won’t attend to what God wants to say to us our wants us to do.  Take time for silence, as you can according to your vocation and circumstances, as often as you can.  Because in that silence and stillness, the All-Powerful Word will leap down from His royal throne in heaven and enter your heart, Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is God, for ever and ever.  Amen.