Echoes the Sound of Silence

In the silence of the heart, the Lord speaks.

When I recently heard these words from a priest, it immediately resonated with me. And while I instinctively knew its truth, I also knew it would be a pearl of peerless price, something difficult to attain. Many and varied would be the attacks preventing us from reaping the full benefits of this humble but precious gift. And the attacks would be both external and internal.

For the enemy of our human nature fills our world with a cacophony of incessant, diverse and beautiful sounds. Our generation has within easy twiddle a steady stream of media of every whim and fancy. We are voracious consumers, and the array of providers is as countless as the grains of sand on a passing desert. And when I do find myself able to sit in an inner room, it’s the deuce of an effort to really unplug. No sooner than two thoughts dare connect themselves, when the internal tower of Babel comes to the fore. Tell me I’m alone in this? I thought not!

Cue today’s saint for inspiration and imitation. It is an exceedingly great honor and privilege to be able to extol the virtues of St. Joseph, who is content to live in the shadow of his beloved Son and Spouse. I look up to this gentle giant in all my vocations as husband, father, worker and disciple—thanks in no small part to a devotion that I first observed in my grandmother, Maria.  A stranger to the faith might well think his was a life of comfort and privilege, given his role as foster father to God’s son and given that he was allotted several years in the company of Jesus and Mary. But in truth, we know that he was accustomed to hardship, the Bible records a man able, willing and ready to turn on a shekel: dreaming, waking, fleeing, sojourning in a foreign land, dreaming, waking, returning, heeding warning, etc. While contemplating the adventures of Joseph, a pattern emerges. He listens, he trusts, he obeys. When faced with life’s ebbs and flows, we would do well to become imitators of Joseph. Let us not hastily jump into action. Rather, let us bring matters to God in prayer, and like the good saint, even sleep on it if necessary! But when His will is made clear, let us immediately and exactly do whatsoever the angel reveals to us.

But above all, we need to imitate the silence of this great saint. He speaks not even one word in the entire Bible. In fact, this speaks volumes about how much God regards the blessed nature of this sublime saint and the incomparable gift of interior silence. How else could God speak to us but in silence? And how wonderful that God speaks to us in this way! For it’s ever within our grasp. All we need do is strive (harder) to quiet our senses and enter the castle of silence, delving deeper and deeper within to the innermost recesses of our heart, where we’ll find what we truly seek, the Answer to all our questions, our origin and our end.

To you, O blessed Joseph, do we come in our afflictions, and having implored the help of your most holy Spouse, we confidently invoke your patronage also. Amen.

[Readings: 2 Sm 7:4-5a, 12-14a, 16; Rom 4:13, 16-18, 22; Mt 1:16, 18-21, 24a]