An interesting phenomenon that has been occurring in our churches for decades is a lack of silence. The noise volume went up when we removed the Real Presence of Jesus from the center of the sanctuary in our churches. With Him relegated to the side, a back corner, or even a storage closet (yes this happened!), the people in many ways lost their center. We as the faithful no longer seem to see our sacred spaces as sacred. Instead, they are places to catch up on the latest news and gossip. The din in many places is cacophonous, which makes it nearly impossible for the average person to pray. Why does this matter?
Silence is an indispensable part of the spiritual life. In fact, often we can gauge our spiritual health on how much we can tolerate and enter into silence. If we cannot sit in silent prayer for even a few short moments, then this should be a red flag to us. Our union with Christ is dependent on some level of silence. Now, depending upon our state in life, this is easier said than done, but even the busiest of moms and dads must find a few moments a day to enter into silent prayer.
The lack of silence in our churches perpetuates the noisiness of our daily lives. We are part of a 24/7 consumer culture. This leaves us harried and ragged interiorly. It means that we are not leading recollected lives. We are not centered in Christ because we are distracted by a million other things that are intentionally designed to distract us. Walking into our churches should be like walking into another world. The outside world is meant to be kept at bay by the church doors. Our churches should be a place of rest and recollection.
It is very easy to turn Mass and prayer time into one more thing on our to-do list. I recently started serving in college campus ministry. Being a staff member at a church or college presents serious challenges to the spiritual life of priests, staff, and ministry volunteers. There is so much to get done—we can fall into the trap of jettisoning our silent prayer time in favor of activity. This “activism” is spiritually destructive. It leaves us tired, frustrated, and focused on things to get done, rather than on Christ.
The same can be said within our parishes. We can forget that we need time in silence before the Lord. There are some people in our churches whose only opportunity for silent union with Christ is before and after Mass. If we are honest, the desire to turn our sacred spaces into social time is a form of egotism that leads us to ignore the Real Presence of Christ in our midst. It makes us turn away from the needs of our prayerful, kneeling neighbor who is desperately trying to hear the Lord amid the frenetic pace of daily living.
The busyness of our parishes and ministries needs to be tempered by an emphasis on prayer. To facilitate prayer, we need to be people who understand the primacy of silence before the Blessed Sacrament. I told my student leadership recently that all activity must cease temporarily when Our Lord is exposed on the altar. We must bow down in silent adoration and center our lives on Him. I told them that if they have tasks that need to be done, I can finish them after a few minutes of my own adoration, so they can rest in the Lord. I have opportunities throughout the week to pray silent Holy Hours while they only have the opportunity for 30 minutes on Sunday before Mass.
This need for even a few short moments of silence was driven home to me when I took some students to serve meals to homeless families earlier this week. We spent that time providing food, conversation, and a listening ear. At the end, a friend from the church we were serving in unlocked the doors to the nave. We spent a few moments in the darkened church immersed in total silence before Our Lord in the illuminated Tabernacle. It was glorious. It may end up being the only silence these college students experience all week.
We are starved for silence in our culture. There are people around us who need silence before the Tabernacle. They are grieving, stressed, overwhelmed, and suffering in many ways. Our idle—and it is idle—chatter about sports or gossip before the Lord’s Real Presence is an affront to Him and our neighbor who needs to rest in Him. In truth, we must truly ask ourselves honestly what our relationship to His Real Presence is if we spend the time before and after Mass ignoring Him.
This is not to disparage the need for community. As the Mystical Body of Christ, we should and need to come together in community. We need to know the time and the place for certain activities, though. The nave is not the place for such endeavors. Social halls were created for this purpose. When we come into the Lord’s Real Presence, our hearts and minds should be focused on Him. Yes, children and spouses may need to ask one another whispered questions, but the focus should be on entering into union with Christ.
Cardinal Robert Sarah said: “Silence is ‘the most important human work’ and the best way to encounter the silent God.” The most important work we do is pray. It is what fills our work with the graces necessary to reach souls. It is the great prayer of the Mass that sends us out into the world, which means we should be spiritually united to Him through a prayerful disposition.
The answer to all the world’s ills can be found in silent prayer before Our Lord’s Real Presence. The antidote to a noisy world is silence. May our churches and ministries become places of the healing power of silence.
Photo by Chris Karidis on Unsplash
