I think I was ordained to the diaconate twice!
In November of 1998, together with my batch, except for
one Benedictine monk who had a separate venue and schedule of ordination, I
submitted myself willingly to the Order of Diaconate held at St. Augustine
Cathedral in the Archdiocese of Cagayan de Oro.
After all the busy preparations and the heady day of ordination which,
of course, included the inevitable and exhausting socialization at the
reception, what I felt was the feeling of great relief that everything went well
and I was already a deacon. I thought that was all that mattered.
After some time, the batch was invited to attend the
ordination of the monk at the Transfiguration Chapel of the Benedictines in
Malaybalay. I was there awed by the
silence of the surroundings and the chapel.
Few people were invited. Hence, the liturgy turned out to be enviably solemn.
During the rite, I was washed with a
deep sense of tranquillity with my mind and heart freed from the disturbing
noise of anxieties that had preoccupied me for the most part of my own ordination. As the ordination rite went on, my tears were
flowing like a stream because, in that deep state of silence that I found
myself in, I felt I was being ordained a second time. And this time, my whole being participated!
Few people have discovered the eloquence of silence. Most people live and mastered the art of
thriving in the noise of anxieties, charting their way to success through the multi-layered
pile of tasks, important concerns, and, no doubt, noble responsibilities. For these people addicted to productive
activities, silence is strange. Silence
is unbearably a waste of their precious time.
In today’s gospel (Mk. 1: 21-28), Jesus commanded the man
with an unclean spirit to be quiet: “Quiet!
Come out of him!” Jesus rebuked
the unclean spirit this way because he was ranting and raving as Jesus was
teaching with authority in the synagogue.
The man with an unclean spirit was resisting Jesus’ authority as he
cried out “What have you to do with
us...? Have you come to destroy us? I
know who you are—the Holy One of God!”
Such is the noise of resistance to God’s authority. Like the evil spirit, all too often we find
ourselves declaring our autonomy from external authorities like God’s. “What
have you to do with us?” We say even unknowingly. We are afraid that God might ask us to change and
“destroy” our own grand plans in life. We acknowledge his Holiness but we do
not trust God enough to allow him to be the God of our lives! Hence, we keep on ranting, filling our hearts
with the noise of resistance. No wonder,
many times we are afraid to be silent. We do not want to admit Him into our lives.
Today we listen to the Lord as He commands us with
authority, “Be quiet!” Only in that deep
state of silence can God speak into our hearts.
I propose the following invitations to silence:
The silence of
emptiness. Cluttered with all our
worldly concerns and anxieties, our minds and hearts have no room to offer for
God. We need to de-clutter. We need to give space for God’s Word to
penetrate our hearts. Silence is an
invitation to emptiness. To be truly
silent is to be empty in such a way that our only yearning is to be graciously
filled up with the sense of being loved by God.
The silence of
powerlessness. Satan’s bad habit is
to perpetually resist the authority of God.
Satan wants to wield power and to be his own God. We do feel this evil tendency in us very
strongly. We want to be “the captain of
our souls.” We want to be the ones
taking hold of the helm of our fate. We have
to admit, we can be control freaks. We
seem to be disoriented and lost when we are not in control. That is why we
resist God’s directions. We cannot let
go. Silence is the courage to be powerless in the face of God. Silence is letting
go of our control and being docile to God’s command, “Be quiet! Come out!” Hence,
silence is an invitation for us to give up our futile resistance and let God be
the God of our lives.
The silence of
peace and harmony. This is the
experience of tranquillity after we have been purged of the “unclean spirit.” This is the peace that sets in after the
convulsions of our defiance. We seek
harmony in life. We can only attain it
by making silence an integral part of our busy lives. We can have peace and
harmony when we have replaced our bad habit of harbouring anxieties and
resistance in our hearts with the powerful habit of incorporating into our
practical lives the eloquent power of silence. The silence of harmony is like the silences in
between the notes of a great musical composition. All those notes fail to form a
harmonious melody when they are not woven together by the silences that connect
them all. So are the endless concerns in our lives.
In a retreat house I’ve visited, a poster hangs on a wall. And as if to remind every guest that he
stands in a haven of silence, it has this to say: BE QUIET AND BE STILL. KNOW
THAT I AM GOD!
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