Today we are bombarded with noise; out in public, on social media, even at Mass. We cannot hope to hear God's voice in all of this - like Elijah, like Jesus, like the Apostles, we need silence. This silence can be found only by making space for it - setting aside time each day to pray, and making a daily visit to adore the Blessed Sacrament.
When I was in sixth form my family joined a parish pilgrimage to the Holy Land. One of the most stunning views we experienced there was from the top of Mount Nebo: the mountain on which God granted Moses a vision of the whole promised land. From the top of that mountain you look out over the whole Jordan plain and follow it along into the great Syrian-African Rift; a vast valley that runs from Lebannon in the North all the way across the Red Sea and down into Africa, as far south as Mozambique. It is (probably) this desert (or wilderness) into which Elijah retreated into in the first reading, and where Christ would go later during his forty-days of fasting.
I remember our guide telling us that (at least before modern times) the deeper you went into the Rift valley, the deeper the silence you would experience – a peacefulness you can get only in the deserts and wildernesses of the world.
Today’s first reading and Gospel passage both draw the distinction between noise and calmness or silence. Elijah goes out into the desert and there is an earthquake, a fire, and a great rushing wind, but he does not meet God in any of these – only in the silence of a gentle breeze. Jesus sends the crowds away before going up a hill to pray in silence. The Apostles are trapped in a heavy storm, but the calming voice of Jesus allows Peter to walk on water, and quiets the storm around them.
What does it mean for us to find God in the silence or the calm of the wilderness?
Today we find ourselves like the Apostles in the boat; surrounded by noise. Our little boat is pulled to-and-fro by the stresses and cares of the world. In every public space the silence is filled with chatter or with loud music. Our eyes and ears are constantly bombarded with advertising – promising us happiness if only we buy this next thing, so long as we live as if we were wealthy. Now so many of us carry around these little devices that demand our constant attention – work emails, text messages or WhatsApp chats, phone calls, YouTube videos, endless scrolling on social media websites – not only disrupting our silence but dragging us into comparing ourselves with others and (of course) trying to sell us something!
Even at Mass there is no silence! Come into most Churches before Mass and you will most often be met by the sound of chatter. Then during Mass, we are required to be constantly alert so we can blather out the responses at the right time; it is not enough to encounter God, we have to participate with our voices or we feel like we’ve not done it right. We can’t see the wood for the trees because as we focus on every word and on saying the right responses we lose the encounter with Christ amongst the noise. Then at the end of Mass, there is still no silence, as the chatter resumes almost immediately!
In all this noise, how are we supposed to find God? Do we even have the chance to hear His voice? No! We are sinking beneath the waves. An epidemic of depression and mental health problems almost unknown until now. More and more people disconnecting from one another, disconnecting from reality, disconnecting from God. God is in the silence of the desert, not the noise of the world. We need to go and find Him there, or rather to go there and let ourselves be found by Him.
What does this actually look like? Most of us don’t enjoy the luxury of being able to take a week off to go on a silent retreat, or to go off for a month to do the Spiritual Exercises. How can we go into the desert?
It begins by disconnecting, and choosing to spend some time each day with the Lord in real silence; switch off the TV, and the phone, and the Laptop, and go to a room that’s free from distractions for a deliberate encounter like Elijah going to meet God. Spend just fifteen minutes doing this every day. Sit quietly. Make the sign of the Cross. Open up a bible (a real bible, not one on a tablet) and read a single chapter of one of the Gospels. Just one chapter. Read it all the way through, then ask the Lord; How are you calling to me in this passage? What are you telling me today? Do this three times, reading slowly through the Chapter, asking the same question again and again; How are you calling to me? Be disciplined about it – make it a set time every day to read the Word and encounter the Lord. Set aside at least fifteen minutes for it.
From there, there is a step two. Step two is to come into one of our open Churches every day and spend a few minutes alone with the Lord in the Tabernacle. Be silent, be present with Him, and ask Him for what you need.
We are in the midst of a storm, the Lord is standing here with us, calling us across the Waters by name – calling us to pay no mind to the crashing waves and howling winds, to listen only to the sound of his calming voice. He is present in the Gospels, He is present in the tabernacle – standing, waiting, calling us.
Like Simon Peter we have to respond to Him; tell me to come to you! We call out to Him by retreating into the silence, by reading his word and adoring his real presence in the Eucharist, by asking Him: what do you want from me? Call to me and I will come!
Jesus calls us to himself – it’s time to step out of the boat and start walking, paying no mind to the storm, listening only for His voice.
Homily for XIX Sunday in Ordinary Time (2023)
1 Kings 19:9, 11-13
Matthew 14:22-33
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