Navigating the sea of Manhattan skyscrapers is ordinarily no small feat. In the months following the September 11 attacks, however, entering a “Big Apple” building became a feat in itself, and usually implied a security screening. Some were as simple as a quick call from the front desk to the receiving party; others, as involved as computer scans, photographs and metal detectors. Lines of resolute visitors weaved through reception areas and guards kept vigilance at the elevators. For safety’s sake, they were to allow no one entrance who had no discernible and approved purpose within. Would a responsible security agent let just anybody into a building invalidated and unchallenged?
Noise bombards us. Images and thoughts frequently swagger into our interior unchecked and invalidated. Inundation is ceaseless; the barrage of billboards advertising skin obstructed by wisps of clothing, the slogans and jingles, the magazines and TV vie with each other for our attention. We have morning shows to stimulate us and evening shows to sedate us and late night shows to hypnotize us. Radio tunes and walkmans and portable MP3 players drown us in their sea of cacophony. Need I even mention cell phones ringing virtually everywhere? The noise crams our thoughts with distracting babble and disturbs peace of mind. If not checked, the noise can lead us away from thought and reflection and toward superficial stimulation, like puppets, pulled by emotion’s strings.
Silence reigned in Manhattan the days following 9/11. No taxi dared honk. Silence shrouded Ground Zero three weeks later when first I walked into its smoldering mountains of rubble. In this silence the great perennial questions of humanity resurged with insistence. What is life all about? Why am I here? Where am I going? Who is God? In silence I shared in the consternation of the many police, firemen and construction workers as they struggled to make sense of it all. More often than not, silence gently turns our inward glance away from ourselves and fixes us on others’ needs. When we are silent, we listen and are attentive. Silence preceded, led to and followed numerous prayers for all involved.
It was silence that penetrated hundreds of us that night a few months ago, as we stood, with tears in our upturned eyes, in St. Peter’s square and witnessed a saint and a father leave this world for the house of the Father.
It embraced a little stable in a far off corner of the world one cold and starry night, beckoning those present to adore a new-born, sleeping in his mother’s arms. It will lead you in hushed and breathless expectation to relive that night and will invite you as well to adore this child who is the Savior of the world. But only if you push out the noise and usher this quiet in. Does not a God, who, enticed by His intense and unconditional love for us, His creatures, leaving His house and entering this world merit and cause silence? Let it reign over the Christmas season, not for its own sake, but for the sake of the One who merits it and causes it!
Silence is no mere selfish turning in on one’s self. Its purpose is conversation with a divine person who wants to speak words of life and light. His Word is all-powerful, capable of making saints out of sinners. But it is softly spoken in the recesses of each heart. Without silence, this inner attentiveness and calm, we risk not hearing Him at all. Not hearing Him means remaining in the dark with blinking Christmas lights and the noise of back-to-back Christmas tunes. It may mean missing the whole point to the Christmas season.
This advent and Christmas, carve out time to be silent, to enter into the sacred interior of your soul and be alone with the new-born Savior. There He awaits you. Silence is a constitutional right. If silence is a gift, why not ask for it? We must guard our interior silence from intrusive and invalidated thoughts to focus on the most important event in human history: God become man. Why not try for a deeper, more faith-filled silence this Christmas? It is worthy of God, don’t you think? Not to do so would be tantamount to being an irresponsible security agent.
(Legionary Brother Michael Steele studies for the priesthood in Rome.)
