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Christmas Silence

Christmas invites us into this silence of God, and his mystery remains hidden to so many people because they cannot find the silence in which God acts. How do we find it? Mere silence on its own does not suffice to create it, for a man may be silent externally while in himself he is torn this way and that by all the confusion of the world. It is possible to keep silent and yet to experience a terrible din within oneself.

Becoming silent means discovering a new order of things. It means that I do not limit my attention to those things I myself can produce and display to others. It means that I do not limit my interest to those things men consider important and valuable. Silence means developing the inner senses, the sense of the conscience, the sensitivity to the eternal in us, the ability to listen to God.

Scientists tell us that the dinosaurs died out because they developed in the wrong direction: a lot of armor plating and not much brain, a lot of muscles and not much understanding. Are not we, too, developing in the wrong direction: a lot of technology, but not much soul? A thick armor plating of material know-how, but a heart that has become empty? Have we not lost the ability to perceive the voice of God in us and to recognize and acknowledge the good, the beautiful, and the true?