My dear brothers in the Lord, today we celebrate
the first Sunday of Advent, a time
of silence and reflection, of meditation and self-examination. Let me share
with you a text published by the Bishops of Canada, I am sure it will be of
great help to all in this time of preparation for Christmas. As you have heard
many times, my wish is that our parish will grow ever more in love for the
Eucharist. Peace and blessings, Fr
Agustin, Pastor.
Advent, Eucharistic
presence
And silence
(I)
«A group of rabbinical students were once arguing about the meaning of a
biblical text. They appealed to their teacher who told them to show him the
page. “What do you see here?” he asked. “The words we are discussing,” they
replied. “These black marks on the page,” the old rabbi said, “contain half the
meaning of the passage. The other half is in the white spaces between the
words.” This is the margin of silence around any page. It is also the necessary
pause between breaths, the stillness between thoughts, the rest between bouts
of activity. For a growing number of people today the Eucharist is a ritual
whose significance is and has long been hemorrhaging. Let me share with you
what I recently heard during a retreat I was giving in Sydney. A pastoral
assistant from a parish in New South Wales told me that the priest there has
actually done what Pope John Paul II asked priests to do and what the
Guidelines of the new edition of the General Instructions of the Roman Missal
reinforce. He has restored liturgical silence to the worship of his parish. I
was surprised, not at this per se, but by the degree. They have silences after
the readings, five minutes after the homily and fifteen minutes at communion. I
asked how the people responded and was told that nobody has walked out and many
are expressing their approval. I don’t, however, want to reduce this subject to
the number of minutes of silence – and for good reason. I think it is
significant that an ordinary Sunday parish congregation can be introduced to
this degree of silence and enjoy it. Meister Eckart typically said that ‘there is nothing so much like God as
silence.’ Mother Teresa, who insisted on the centrality of two hours of
silent prayer for the life of her apostolic sisters, typically said that
‘silence is God speaking to us.’ Each of these sayings illustrates a way of
understanding the meaning of silence»[1] ■
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario