The Silence of Mary

Holy Mary, Mother of God, you who treasured all things and pondered them carefully in your heart, teach us that deep, interior silence which enfolded you throughout your lifetime ~

the silence of the Annunciation, of faith, mission and obedience;

the silence of the Visitation, of humility, service and praise;

the silence of Bethlehem, of birth, incarnation and wonder;

the silence of the flight into Egypt, of perseverance, hope and trust;

the silence of Nazareth, of simplicity, intimacy and communion;

the silence of Mt. Calvary, of courage, death and abandonment;

the silence of Easter, of resurrection, jubilation and glory;

the silence of Ascension, of fulfillment, transformation and new crea-tion;

the silence of Pentecost, of peace, power and love.

Dearest Mary, in your wisdom, teach us that silence which enables us to listen to the small, still voice of our God; which compels us to worship Him alone in spirit and in truth; which empowers us to acknowledge our nothingness and exult confidently in our Savior; which frees us to lose ourselves in unceasing adoration of the God who is Infinite Love. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us now and always, that we may enter into that silence of yours which unites us to Jesus, your Son, in the mystery of His silence before the Father of mercies. Amen.

Copyright 1993 ~ Alice Claire Mansfield

"Live moments of silence..."

Ave Maria! On the occasion of the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, December 12, Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, sent a message to the media of Latin America, stressing the need for silence in our lives as we prepare for Christmas. The following excerpt is a challenging and welcome invitation to make deep interior silence a priority in our lives, not only during this holy Advent season but also every day of our lives.

I invite you to live moments of silence during these days of Advent, to hear Jesus' voice who speaks to our heart. Holding Mary's hand, let us meet with him without haste, as he always awaits us! Lets put a dike to the flood of concerns and noises that so often drag us endlessly. Silence is like a blank screen on which we can project the film of our daily life to see it clearly. If we project it on a wall full of pictures, books and objects, with a background of noise, we will understand little. Only in silence do we assume in a more conscious way our options; in silence we hear the voice of God. In this way we will be able to be genuine bearers of his Word -- as Mary who, "kept all these things in her heart" (Luke 2:19) -- and do whatever he tells us (cf. John
2:5).

Perhaps it is difficult advice to follow at this moment of news bombardment, pastoral needs, bustle in families, in our media and in parishes, not to mention purchases, gifts, parties and celebrations. However, if we dedicate time to choose the ingredients and to prepare the dinners and meals we will share over the holidays, must we not also prepare, and even more so, what we will communicate through radios, newspapers, television programs and Web sites? What can we give that is substantial, if our life is filled only with repeated words, with little depth and contents? Let us dedicate time to the Lord whom we are awaiting this Advent.

May Mary ... grant us from God the gift of interior silence, precisely to be able to renew our life of discipleship, so that he will make fruitful our words, texts, images and musical notes, and make them bearers of the Good News.

Dear Mary, Virgin of Advent, let me enter into your silence as we wait in joyful hope for the coming of Jesus, the fruit of your womb and the Father's Incarnate Word. Amen.

Silence

But Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart. ~Luke 2:19

Do we understand at last that action must be born of silence, and abide in silence, and issue in silence, and that its power must be the emanation and the radiation of silence, since its sole aim is to make men capable of hearing the Word that silently reverberates in their souls?

Education, government, instruction, and spiritual direction, how much all these would be changed, how efficacious and liberating they would all become if parents, politicians, teachers and priests brought to their task the mysterious effacement of the Host, if their words became silent, and the exercise of their authority had no other purpose than to open the soul to the silence of God.

All speech and reasoning, all eloquence and science, all methods and psychologies, all slogans and suggestions, are not worth a minute's silence, in which the soul, completely open, yields itself to the embrace of the Spirit.

This is the adorable secret of a visit to the Blessed Sacrament or a visit, possible even more frequently, to the Trinity present in our soul and the souls of our brethren.

Is this not the first Church to build: the invisible cathedral erected in our hearts to the silent Word?

~from The Splendour of the Liturgy by Maurice Zundel

Dear Mary, woman wrapped in silence, help us to build an invisible cathedral in our hearts to your Beloved Son, the silent Word. There let us adore Him as you did -- in spirit and in truth, "lost in wonder, love and praise."

"How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given!"

The entrance antiphon from today's Mass, the Sixth Day of the Octave of Christmas, speaks of the silence of the Incarnate Word: "When peaceful silence lay over all, and night had run half of her swift course, your all-powerful word, O Lord, leaped down from heaven, from the royal throne' (Wis 18:14-15).

"God is the friend of silence," Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta used to say. Her meditation below says it all.

If we really want to pray we must first learn to listen, for in the silence of the heart God speaks. And to be able to see that silence, to be able to hear God, we need a clean heart, for a clean heart we can see God, can hear God, can listen to God.

When it is difficult to pray we must help ourselves to do so. The first means to use is silence, for souls of prayer are souls of great silence. We cannot put ourselves directly in the presence of God if we do not practise internal and external silence.

God is the friend of silence.

Let us adore Jesus in our hearts, who spent thirty years out of thirty-three in silence, who began his public life by spending forty days in silence, who often retired alone to spend the night on a mountain in silence. He who spoke with authority, now spends his earthly life in silence. Let us adore Jesus in the Eucharistic silence.

We need to find God and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. See how nature, the trees, the flowers, the grass grow in perfect silence – see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence. Is not our mission to give God to the poor in the slums? Not a dead God but a living, loving God. The more we receive in silent prayer, the more we can give in our active life.

Silence gives us a new outlook on everything. We need silence to be able to touch souls. The essential thing is not what we say but what God says to us and through us. Jesus is always waiting for us in silence. In that silence he will listen to us, there he will speak to our soul, and there we will be able to hear his voice. Interior silence is very difficult but we must make the effort. In silence we will find new energy and true unity. The energy of God will be ours to do all things well. The unity of our thoughts with his thoughts, the unity of our actions with his actions, of our life with his life. All our words will be useless, unless they come from within – words which do not give the light of Christ increase the darkness.

Dear Mary, Mother of the Incarnate Word, teach us to adore our God and King in peaceful silence with you. Amen.

Create silence...

"The present state of the world and the whole of life is diseased. If I were a doctor and were asked for my advice, I would reply: Create silence! Bring men to silence. The Word of God cannot be heard in the noisy world of today. And even if it were blazoned forth with all the panoply of noise so that it could be heard in the midst of all the other noise, then it would no longer be the Word of God. Therefore create silence." ~Soren Kierkegaard

Soren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher and theologian, wrote the above near the end of his life. He was born in in 1813 and died in 1855. How noisy could it have been over 150 years ago before television, cell phones, Muzak, iPods, and the other noise pollutants of our age? Our current need for silence is enormous! How can I create silence within me and around me and bring others to it? Mary, Mother of the Incarnate Word, who kept and pondered all things in the silence of your heart, teach me that true interior silence we so desperately need in our world and hearts today!