December 25, 2006
Silence
Near Christmas time, a teacher asked a group of first-graders what love means. A seven-year old said, “Love is what’s in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.”
Here and there in the liturgy we celebrate, we find a short note. It says “Silence may be kept.” It comes after a reading or after a homily and in the prayers of the people. It says “may,” not “shall.” And it says that the silence may be “kept.”
One meaning of that is that it’s yours to keep. You can do with it what you will. You can take it with you and use it as the occasion arises. Most of us can rest assured that there’ll be such occasions over the next few days when silence will be welcome, and though we can remember any time that God loves us just as we are, we can surely remember that especially at that moment.
We’re careful to observe that suggestion about silences in the liturgy here. We take and keep them. So much so that one time someone wondered if we’d lost our place. When these intentional silences occur, as with the child’s notion about love, I hope that if we stop opening all these Christmas gifts of bread and wine and story, of brass and string and chorus, of word and sacrament for a moment, love may be especially noticeable. If we will but listen for it.
And remember midst all this that God is love. God is the love in the Christ child whose birth we remember as God’s present to us and as God’s presence with us. God is love in Mary’s and Joseph’s puzzled joy. God’s love in this place is yours. With the silences, it, too, may be kept. Of all the gifts in this life, said St Paul, love is the greatest, the one that endures, the one that you can take with you, that you can keep.
Please take. And one day, perhaps, you may bring it back. For here, you are always welcome… and loved.