Silence

Perish the thought that the world is about to end in a few days. What is ultimately shuddering is not the upheaval or chaos or violent finale. What we fear is the possibility of silence at the end.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

If the Word was in the beginning, then before the beginning of everything, there was only Silence. During these days of Advent, let us immerse ourselves in this silence. Let us listen to it, imagine it, and face this dark void and hollowness before everything came to be.

We are afraid of this silence. We are afraid because even if we do not hear it, we know it is there. It is the silence of our loneliness, our poverty and dislocation; the silence of our not being known or understood or forgiven; the silence of lovelessness and dispossession. It is the silence that surrounds us when we are in deep pain, when we fall to tears, when we are betrayed, or when we lean against the door to let go and are left with nothing more than an aching numbness. When there is nothing more, nothing more to live for or hope for, no one to love, there is only silence.

We are afraid of this kind of silence because we too can give it to one another. To the one who has hurt us, we can hurt back by returning nothing, not even a sigh or telling gesture. We have seen how words fail us, how words (even if they break the silence) can only deepen the breach between us. And so we fall to a silence that separates us and deadens us, the willful silence of our absence to one another.

Ultimately, we are afraid of the silence that might meet us when our journey is over. Even if we seldom think about it, or are not terrified by the silence that was there before we ever came to be, we are afraid of the silence at the very end. We are afraid that when we die, as it was before we were born, there is only silence. If we dread the void and the darkness, we are even more afraid of the silence that can be inflicted on us, the way we use silence to hurt each other: the silence of separation, the willful silence of God’s absence to us, the wordlessness (not even a sigh or telling gesture) that can be our sentence at the every end.

Thus we are consoled to hear that in the beginning was the Word. And that this Word was with God at the beginning, that this Word was God, and that when this Word was spoken, everything came to be. Let there be light. Let there be love. And all that came to be could never be undone. And the Word that was God saw everything. And he saw that everything was good.

When we love, we cannot but speak. When we love, we break the silence.

Let these days of Advent open our hearts and minds to the Word that creates and recreates our lives. He is the Word made flesh, the Word come to dwell among us. He who has loved us from the very beginning continues to speak to us in our own words and fallen sentences.

As the Word has spoken, so too must we learn to speak and listen to one another. Even in words that have been known to fail us, we need to keep telling our fears and joys and sorrows to one another. We need to be careful with our words; we need to learn to speak kindly, firmly, patiently, bravely; we need to speak to each other, and not talk at one another. We need to learn to speak words that give life, words that have the power to hearten, quicken, challenge, console, forgive and affirm us when we are weak and lost and afraid.

As in the beginning, so now and at the very end. The Word has been spoken. There can be no undoing. Hush, listen. The silence we fear has forever been broken.

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Fr. Jose Ramon T Villarin SJ is president of the Ateneo de Manila University. For feedback on this column, email tinigloyola@yahoo.com