Fr Alexander Master, Assistant Priest at St John’s Wood and member of the Diocesan Chaplaincy team reflects on ‘silence’ being golden….

Within a fifteen minute walk from the parish church on Lisson Grove, you can find someone selling food from any part of the world you might care to imagine. Living in London, we are spoilt for choice! But though you can get your hands on almost any commodity in the shops and markets, there is one thing which is often in short supply: silence.

A recent retreat with other members of the diocesan youth chaplaincy team brought home to me what a rare quality silence can be for us. Though only an hour from the airport, the retreat house was in a valley almost totally devoid of noise. Such extended calm was a mildly unnerving experience to begin with, but it soon became obvious how conducive the situation was to reflection and prayer, and, with it being Lent at the time, proved an invaluable preparation for Holy Week.

Returning home to London, the contrast was striking. Most of us are not asked to live a life of contemplation in isolated French valleys; we strive to live out our faith in contexts of work, or of study, where it would be impossible, and often unreasonable, to take hours out of the day to sit and be still.

In a world of multi-channel television and 24/7 internet, silence and stillness have never required such discipline to attain. But they are just as necessary as ever. What would have happened to Samuel if he had been surfing the net instead of being still when the voice of God whispered his name? Would a twenty-first century Elijah been so keen to catch up on the latest podcast that he wouldn’t have been spiritually equipped to have recognised the presence of God, not in the loudness of earthquake or fire, but in the calm of a gentle breeze?

How do we find the silence in which God will have a chance to speak to us, and we to God? In a busy parish, the answer may very well not be during the Sunday Mass. Full, conscious and active participation, not least by the youngest members of our communities, will rule that out! So we need to cast our nets more widely. Maybe our parish church is open during the day? We could take advantage of the quiet: there aren’t many more peaceful places than an empty church. Is there a regular time of Exposition? Can we find a few hours to get out of the city? A quiet walk through the fields or the woods can help us to a greater awareness of the presence of God.

Perhaps it doesn’t matter so much where we find our silence. What matters is that, now and again, we do. God never gets bored with wanting to relate to us. But we need to make the space to listen. And in the silence, we might just find that space.

Tags: silence, Youth Chaplain

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