Well, that was awkward silence.
Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz and this is Ascension Presents.
Speaking of awkward silences, I want to just- let's talk about silence.
So many of our lives have just so much noise
and so little silence
that I think we're missing something as a culture.
Years ago, Pope Benedict XVI, he said that God's first language is silence
but think about this:
Think about when was the last time you ever had any kind of sense
where you actually chose to enter into silence and didn't distract yourself by introducing noise?
When was the last time when you entered into silence
and didn't then just kinda at some point have that "OK, the awkward silence,"
and so then you had to just say something, do something, distract yourself by some kind of noise,
whether that's actual noise, like audible noise
or visual noise or just kind of mental noise
but God's first language is silence
because God speaks in silence.
You know, it's actually in silence that God reveals himself.
I used to grow up thinking like you know I'd hear about these saints
who had, you know, actual audible messages from God, that God would speak to them,
I think, "That's what it is to pray! To pray is to enter into this time of prayer
and God would just actually speak,"
and then realizing, "Wait, wait,"
that sometimes happens,
"but God's first language is
to reveal himself through silence."
Not only reveals himself in silence he also reveals
ourselves to ourselves in silence.
God reveals us to ourselves in silence.
Well, think about that.
So that's one of the reasons why we don't like it.
We don't like it to be quiet.
In fact, we used to have a lot of students who would come to our Holy Hour every morning.
We have a, you know, Holy Hour every morning here on campus,
so it's basically an hour of silence, an hour of silent adoration in front of Jesus in the Eucharist.
And they're would be so many students who's come to me that were super perplexed afterwards like,
"I don't know what's going on. I go into adoration and I'm just so mad, Father, like what's happening?
Should I not go?"
Like, "No, keep going to adoration."
Or "I go into adoration, Father, and like I have these crazy thoughts like,
it's kind of like these feelings of loss and these thoughts of lust like, should I just not go?
Should I avoid prayer because I think I have these crazy thoughts when I'm in prayer? Should I just not go?"
"No, no. Keep going."
"But Father, I go into prayer and all these things, I have this anxiety or this fear
and maybe I should avoid going to prayer
because I think that prayer is causing me to have these thoughts of anger,
that prayer is causing me to have these thoughts of lust,
that prayer is causing me to have all these anxieties and these fears."
So, no. Calm down. *deep breath*
The silence, the prayer is not CAUSING those things.
Silence is a great magnifier.
What silence does is silence reveals what's already in our heart.
Silence expose- remember, silence reveals us to ourselves.
And so, when you go into prayer and you have that time of silence,
and you realize, "Man, I've got such anger because usually I'm distracted from the anger,
but now in silence, I can't distract myself from the fact that my heart has a bunch of anger in it."
Or "In silence, I find myself thinking about all my possessions, think about wanting more possessions."
Well, that's not because silence is creating that.
Silence is simply revealing that.
Whatever is in my heart gets exposed and magnified in silence.
I think that's one of the reasons why we don't like silence
because we don't want to have to deal with the stuff that's going on in our lives.
In fact, Blaise Pascal, who is this, you know, sixteenth century (?) philosopher mathematician what-not,
he's a Christian Catholic man and he had said this,
he said, "All of humanity's problems
stem from
man's inability to sit by himself
in a room for one hour."
All of humanity's problems stem from our inability to sit by ourselves for one hour in silence.
Now again, that's a that's a pretty big statement
but to say like,
Wait a second.
Is there any truth in that statement?
Do I have the ability to just sit in silence
and just actually think my own thoughts?
Do I have the ability to sit in silence and actually feel my own feelings?
That's one of the reasons why we distract ourselves all of the time:
"I don't want to think my own thoughts. I don't want to feel my own feelings."
Because then what has to happen is then I have to deal with those things.
I have to deal with those thoughts. I have to deal with those feelings
and so I want to avoid those feelings and thoughts by distracting myself.
And yet, what would happen,
what's the worst that would happen if you entered into silence
specifically silence in prayer,
let those things come to the surface
and then invited God into them?
"Man, Lord, I have so much fear in my heart.
I didn't realize it was so powerful and so strong and so paralyzing.
Okay God, it's there, so I'm inviting you into this fear."
Reveal it and reveal yourself.
"God, I have these crazy thoughts of lust and I don't know what to do with them."
"Okay, God okay, (they're) coming to the surface. I'm inviting you into them,"
like reveal what's going on, what's beneath this.
Because it's not that, it's some other kind of brokenness, some other kind of wound,
some other kind of, something going on, "I have so much anger!"
Okay, let that come to the surface.
"God, come into the anger here. I'm not sure what to do with this."
So many of us spend too much time distracting ourselves, even in prayer,
so we tell God the things we think he wants to hear
rather than the things that we need to invite him into.
We tell God about all the stuff that's going on in our daily lives
instead of like actually letting what's really in the depth of our heart be exposed, revealed, magnified,
so we can say, "Okay God, that's what's really going on. Okay, come into this.
Help me make sense of this. Come in and heal this.
You know, one last thing that silence does.
What sounds IS, I guess maybe say, silence is boring.
Not just in prayer. I'm talking about like the rest of your days.
I'm making some supper so what do I need to do?
Well, I need to put on a episode of whatever on Netflix.
Or I'm making this supper, so I'm gonna put a YouTube on blah blah blah you know this kind of thing.
I'm gonna put on Ascension Presents on and watch myself talk.
Um, that's not true. I'm just making that up.
But how many times, I'm doing something so I'm going to listen to music.
I'm gonna to be doing something, so I'm going to listen to a tutorial.
I'm doing something, so I'm gonna have something to distract myself from the moment.
Here's something interesting when it comes to boredom.
My parents, my mom and dad would always say this whenever we were kids
you know, a summer break or whatever.
We'd say, "Mom and Dad, this is so boring!"
My mom and dad would always have one response.
They'd say, "Things aren't boring.
People are."
Things aren't boring, people are.
And if I found myself unable to be creative on my own,
unable to think my own thoughts, unable to feel my own feelings, unable to-
in some ways,
be bored
and then let creativity come out of that boredom.
To be bored and let
the Lord speak in that boredom.
To be bored
and in that boredom, in that silence
to let something incredible happen,
I might be short-circuiting the contribution I can make not only to the world in a big way
but to this moment, to the day.
A critical ingredient for creativity
is boredom.
A critical recipe and ingredient for boredom is a
lack of distraction
and a critical recipe and ingredient for lack of distraction is silence.
So, don't be afraid of silence. Get used to silence.
Be drawn to silence because silence
is God's first language,
where he reveals himself to us
and reveals us to us.
For all of us here at Ascension Presents, my name's Father Mike.
God bless.