The Fire in the Forge

Over the last year and a half, I've heard four homilies on silence. The irony is that these homilies are offered in the context of the noisiest place I go: Mass in the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite. From the choir practicing before Mass, to the non-stop, live-radio show presentation of the Mass, to the time after Mass when small talk rises to a din of laughter, raised voices, and sometimes even shouting, silence is a no-show. A further irony is that each homily presents places other than at Mass in which to seek prayerful silence.

I understand the importance of silence as illuminated by each homily: We pray from the silence of our hearts. In silence we hear the voice of God. In the silence, we encounter our Creator.  

I also understand the importance of Mass in presenting "the law of prayer" by which is established "the law of belief." It follows that this presentation of the "law of prayer" should, at the very least, present this truth: The laity must unite their individual prayers to the prayers of the priest in the Holy Sacrifice of Mass. For this to happen, it must be made possible to engage in interior prayer from the silence of the heart. For this, there must be Holy Silence.

Icon of the Holy Silence


I regard Mary's encounter with the Angel Gabriel, the Annunciation, to be the world's perfect moment of Holy Silence, a moment when sound and time froze as Mary regarded the Messenger of God, and a moment when all things began anew when Our Lady answered, "Yes."

While attending the Traditional Latin Mass, now called the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite (EF), I began to recognize the silence of the Annunciation in the extended Holy Silence granted during this form of the Mass. Holy Silence allowed each person to approach God in a manner suited to each of them. Holy Silence not only allowed for interior participation, without which all else is superfluous, Holy Silence also fostered reverence and a sense of the sacred. Holy Silence not only granted the laity a means of conversing with God in the quiet of their hearts while in the Presence of God, but made our children witnesses to the reverence of their parents for the sacred mysteries.

"The law of prayer is the law of belief," as the Latin states.

Especially for children, silence is a powerful dynamic. It demands attention. It directs attention. With silence all around them, they see their family and the congregation kneeling and bowing their heads in prayer, and the law of prayer becomes written on a child's heart.

As a 3-year old, my youngest daughter knew a few prayers by heart, but did not know of the Real Presence. Yet, as she knelt in silence along with every other child and every mom and dad at the beginning and end of the EF, she seemed to regard those moments of prayer before the Holy of Holies as special, as extraordinary. As she grew older, around 5, her mom and I began her formal religious instruction. Even in the earliest stages, we could rely on the EF of the Mass, and especially the reverence inspired by Holy Silence, to clearly present the moral theology, or the theological consideration of behavior, associated with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Real Presence.

Today, as an 8 year old, she kneels and prays after the OF Mass, shutting her eyes and ears to the din of voices and laughter all around her, unfazed by a friend from school who runs down the pew in front of her shouting her name. She seems a quiet calm in the tempest of noise as she prays.
  
The Mass has always been the most efficient, most practical means of teaching and passing on the faith, and as such, Holy Silence is the fire with which Catholic spirituality is forged through prayer. When the laity are not granted Holy Silence at Mass, they are essentially being told to find conversation with God elsewhere, and far too many Catholics have done just that.