SILENCE BEFORE THE EUCHARIST

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We need to find God, and He cannot be found in noise and restlessness.  God is the friend of silence.  See how nature - trees, flowers, grass - grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence. We need silence to be able to touch souls.’ (‘Come Be My Light: The Private Writings of the Saint of Calcutta)

St Benedict, in the Holy Rule, which we still keep after 1500 years, used two words for silence: quies and silentium.  Quies is quiet, physical silence, an absence of noise.  It is a physical self-restraint that respects the presence of other people.

The second, silentium, however, is not an absence of noise but an attitude of consciousness turned towards others or to God.   Lent is the time for turning to our Lord and Savior, but we cannot do this if we are bustling around like  ants.

What greater attention can we pay to Jesus at this time, than that which we give in the presence of the Eucharistic. When we place ourselves in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament we place ourselves before the gaze of Christ who loves us and wants us to know that love.

St Jean Marie Vianney, the Cure of Ars, tells of asking an old farmer why he came into the church every day to sit before the tabernacle: “I look at Him” he replied “and He looks at me and we tell each other that we love each other.”