April 1, 2007
in
THE IMPORTANCE OF SILENCE
For every Catholic Christian, Holy Week is the most important week of the year, particularly the celebration of the Paschal Triduum: Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday. During this week, the way we experience “time” is transformed from “cronos” to “kairos”: cronos measures time in seconds, minutes, hours, days…etc.; kairos stops measuring time and simply allows God to enter our lives when all sense of counting and measuring is suspended. Cronos is pragmatic and necessary in keeping schedules and measuring work load; kairos is mysterious and changes the way we experience time, less as something to be measured and more as a way to live in the PRESENT…the only way God can be experienced.
Yes, we need schedules of Holy Week services, which have a beginning and an end; but what happens OUTSIDE these services is perhaps as important as what happens WITHIN the celebrations. This is where SILENCE enters the picture: we need “times” of silence to lose ourselves in God’s mysterious Presence. We need to be able to savor, in silence, the mysteries we remember and celebrate in community. The more we enter into the silence of solitude and allow God to speak to us, the more the Eucharist and other communal celebrations will mean for us and our lives.
Our lives are busy, scattered and filled with the noise of radio, television and other technological gadgets. We need to carve out, in our busy schedules, the time to be silent and surrender to God. In these moments, time is not measured at all because we become focused on the Lord and lose a sense of time altogether.
We need to develop silence even within the Liturgy so that we can become more rooted in Word and Sacrament. Something as simple as coming to Mass a few minutes early to prepare, in silence, to hear the Word and be nourished by the Eucharist can make all the difference in the world. A sense of community can be built and strengthened in silence, just as much as when the community is engaged in dialogue, gesture and song.
Let’s all make the effort this Holy Week to live in “times” of silence, remembering that the Triduum begins with the Mass of the Lord’s Supper and is not complete until the final blessing at the Vigil. The Triduum is ONE continuous moment with much room for
silence: adoration on Holy Thursday evening, the quiet of Good Friday, the waiting on Holy Saturday. From our silence, we will rise in joyful praise on Easter, the feast that reminds us that at some “time” all time will cease and we will live in the forever present.
