SILENTIUM EST AUREM

 

    Growing older and perhaps less tolerant, the old Latin saying  - Silentium est aurem (Silence is golden) enhances its value because it protects me from futile noises, and clarity unfolds. In an environment infiltrated by noise, silence is elusive and yet, in its stillness, my true self emerges from noise’s haziness.

            Painful experience has taught me that silence’s aptitude shatters doubt’s commotion. Its stillness enlightens my faith - the confidence in what we hope for and the assurance about what we do not see (Hebrews 11,1). Augustine’s advice thus enlightens: ‘Enter into your heart, and if you have faith, you will find Him there’ (Confessions Bk 10), because in silence, we attune our hearts to the Divine Presence.

            Through silence’s stillness, our heart finds its voice: our readiness to dialogue and thus, our willingness to change and discover what it means to be still and know that I am God (Psalm 46,10). In our Magister’s frequent withdrawal to solitary places (Luke 5,16) to pray, a cultivated silence prepares us to experience our restfulness. In Elijah’s footsteps, we learn that the comforting hush of a summer breeze surpasses earthquakes or fires when we speak of God (1Kings 19,12-13).

            As we move silently from one experience to another – our earthquakes and uproars, surpassing stages that shape our lives, we learn to entrust everything in God’s hands and leave it there. So doing, we realise that the rest is silence (William Shakespeare, Hamlet V.2). Hence, ‘For God alone wait in silence, for my hope is from Him ’ (Psalm 62,5).

            Surpassing intellectual assent, unearthing an interrelated trust, we are not afraid to let go of our past: to embark on journeys whose end is unclear as we experience newness as Abraham before us (Genesis 12,1). Silence’s novelty sustains an inwardness by which our life stages, rather than hindrances to growth, become stepping-stones to deeper insights.

            As a faith community, the need for silence frees us from the temptation to squabble among ourselves as to who is the greatest (Mark 9,33-37). Rather than an excuse to escape others, silence renovates our fellowship (John Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew). 

            Silence sustains critical thought and creativity, which reinforces our sense of belonging without the need to deceive ourselves by mirroring ourselves in others, afraid to be different: that is, to be happy with oneself and in oneself and thus, reinforce our fellowship.

            Socrates equates this happiness with a process: to find yourself, think for yourself by examining your life, because the unexamined life is not worth living (Plato, Apologia). This insight reinforces the Magister’s observation that where your treasure is, there also is your heart (Matthew 6,21): no conceit nor egocentricity is envisaged, because our hearts awakened to God’s committed love (Agape), deepen insights into our choices as we scrutinise our desires.

This deepening comprehension enhances our consciousness of being one with others and strengthens dialogue as we share God’s compassion. To do so, we need to sit at the Magister’s feet: to choose what is better by enhancing His voice  (Luke 10, 38-42). We experience this better part when, like Saint Jean Marie Vianney, we throw ourselves at the foot of the Tabernacle like a dog at the feet of its master: to let the stillness of silentium nourish our intimacy with God.

Enlightened, silence enhances our tranquillity, which does not exclude distressful situations, but the serenity to live through them as our response to God’s accompanying presence. Accordingly, the prayer: ‘God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the knowledge to know the difference’ (Reinhold Niebuhr).

Martin

 

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