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.  

Repeating

Fourth Sunday of Advent

    I used to have SiriusXM Radio in my car, but I got tired of having to verbally fight with them to get the lowest rates, so I decided to try streaming music instead.  And because I’m frugal (others would use the word cheap), I wanted a free source.  I tried Pandora at first, but then everyone I know encouraged me to get Spotify.  I like the idea of being able to like certain songs, and have what I’m sure is an algorithm suggest other songs like it to which I can listen.  
    But what I have noticed is that, with occasional exceptions, it tends to play the same songs over and over again in any playlist I have.  Even when I get a rare new song and like the song, it still tends to take me back into a rotation of about 30 songs, so I feel like I’m hearing the same songs over and over again.

    You may have the same feeling with today’s Gospel reading, though maybe not as strongly.  This Gospel passage, from the first chapter of the Gospel according to St. Matthew, was the Gospel for the day on 18 December; it’s the Gospel today; and it will be the Gospel for the 4:30 p.m. Christmas Eve Mass.  I can imagine what your mind goes to when you hear the words, “This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about.”  It’s probably something like, “Didn’t I just hear this?”  
    Beyond the Gospel, Catholicism is built on ritual.  The Mass is, substantially, the same every week.  The readings change, the preface sometimes change, and I generally alternate between different versions of the Eucharistic Prayer week by week, but not that much changes.  I will admit that I even sometimes check my blog with all my homilies to make sure that I’m not preaching the same thing year after year, especially with these seasons and days that have similar themes.  
    And some will criticize the ritual nature of Catholicism.  Our evangelical brothers and sisters might have a different service every month, even if there is a similar format.  There’s much more sense of inventing something new and exciting every year, probably because it appeals to our desire to be entertained.  And entertainment is, generally speaking, putting out new things that delight the fact that we’ve never seen it before.  While Hollywood has leaned on remakes of past releases, generally they are always making new movies.  Singers tend to include some old favorites at concerts, but more so tend to focus on the latest album they released.  
    But, as much as we find ourselves drawn to what is new and exciting (or, to use a newer word, bussin’), the human person has a need for routine and things that do not change.  Routine creates a certain calm or stability that we need.  Even in the hectic mornings when you’re getting yourself and/or your kids ready, your routine, even if interrupted, of putting on deoderant, brushing your teeth, combing your hair, shaving, putting on make-up, using cologne or perfume, probably gives you some sense of stability, even if the rest of the day is anything but stable.  And it opens up success for the future that chaos tends not to support.  Imagine that, to keep things new and fresh, you decided not to wear deodorant or brush your teeth.  It probably wouldn’t help you out in your day, and would create more stress.
    Ritual in the Catholic Church creates calm because our encounter with God is not meant to be a flurry of emotions, though we sometimes do get an emotive response.  Our worship of God should create a peace and quiet in us that allows to hear God, who often works in the stillness and silence.  An emotive high is like a drug: it’s exciting (for you younger folk, it slaps) when you experience something new.  But then, as you get used to new and ever-changing, the level of new and changing has to increase because your tolerance for new has increased, and the old new and exciting doesn’t give you the same high.  That’s why Catholic Masses are not and should not be like rock concerts.  There’s a place for that kind of music, in our devotional life, but in the Mass, we need to create a quiet space to encounter God, who didn’t come to Elijah in an earthquake, fire, or storm, but in the stillness.
    Routine and ritual also allow us to do what novelty never allows: go deeper.  When I’m just concerned about getting something new each time, I remain that the surface level, because I’m adjusting to stimuli I haven’t experienced before.  When I hear the same prayer or the same Gospel passage again and again, God desires that I do go deeper than just the surface.  It was only after a while of praying the fourth Eucharistic Prayer (which I use during Ordinary Time), that I recognized the words, “Look, O Lord, upon the Sacrifice which you yourself have provided for your Church…” could refer back to Genesis, when Abraham was on his way to sacrifice Isaac, his beloved Son, and Isaac asks where the sheep for sacrifice is, that Abraham says that God Himself will provide the sheep for the sacrifice.  As I grow in my understanding of the Scriptures, I see how they intertwine with the Mass, something we can miss if we only stay at the surface level.
    So, yes, we will hear again (if you go to the Vigil Mass of Christmas on Wednesday afternoon), “This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about,” a passage that we have likely heard countless times.  But, as with this Gospel, so with the Mass: don’t stay at the surface.  Allow the calm of the ritual to push you into deeper meanings and connections throughout the rest of the Mass, the Scriptures, and the Church’s other teachings.  Don’t miss the depth God wants to reveal because you want something new and exciting each time.  Remain with God, the source of beauty, ever ancient, ever new.