{"id":40161,"date":"2013-06-20T08:00:12","date_gmt":"2013-06-20T13:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.austincnm.com\/?p=40161"},"modified":"2013-06-19T22:31:37","modified_gmt":"2013-06-20T03:31:37","slug":"the-call-behind-the-silence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/2013\/06\/the-call-behind-the-silence\/","title":{"rendered":"The Call Behind the Silence"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Picture<\/a>

Picture courtesy of commons.wikimedia.org.<\/p><\/div>\n

One unfortunate artifact of the technological mindset of our age is that we are uncomfortable with what we cannot grasp.\u00a0 Silence makes us uneasy because it makes us aware of a certain emptiness inside ourselves.\u00a0 So we fill our lives with noise and distractions – television, games, music, frivolous shopping.\u00a0 Our advances are geared toward the ever-increasing availability of these high-demand diversions.\u00a0 Not that most of them are inherently bad, but they do have the effect of dissipating our focus.<\/p>\n

While social media has greatly expanded our breadth of communication, our depth has generally suffered.\u00a0 Twitter is a tool designed for emission and reception of messages in quick succession, and there are certainly many situations where this sort of communication is necessary.\u00a0 Messages from our Holy Father’s account prove that even deep spiritual nourishment can fit inside 140 ASCII characters, but this is the exception rather than the rule, and depth comes through quiet reflection.\u00a0 As John Henry Newman observes (sermon “The Lapse of Time”), “no meaningful knowledge of great truths comes without the deep conviction of it that derives from thinking over it steadily and seriously”.<\/p>\n

Though written fifty years ago, a profound passage from Thomas Merton’s “New Seeds of Contemplation” draws strong parallels to the modern age (chapter “Solitude Is Not Separation”):<\/p>\n

Where men live huddled together without true communication, there seems to be greater sharing, and a more genuine communion.\u00a0 Buth this is not communion, only immersion in the general meaninglessness of countless slogans and cliches repeated over and over again so that in the end one listens without hearing and responds without thinking.\u00a0 The constant din of empty words and machine noises, the endless booming of loudspeakers end by making true communication and true communion almost impossible.\u00a0 Each individual in the mass is insulated by thick layers of insensibility.\u00a0 He doesn’t care, he doesn’t hear, he doesn’t think.\u00a0 He does not act, he is pushed.\u00a0 He does not talk, he produces conventional sounds when stimulated by the appropriate noises.\u00a0 He does not think, he secretes cliches.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So what lies in the silence we fear?\u00a0 In leaving distractions and stimulation behind, we become aware of our mortality, our insignificance, our spiritual poverty.\u00a0 But something else enters our awareness as well.<\/p>\n

Jesus said, “whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 10:39).\u00a0 When we come across something of extreme beauty – a sunset, a song, a pretty face – we become momentarily paralyzed and lost in its beauty.\u00a0 Somehow the loss we experience in beholding it brings us great delight.\u00a0 We are temporarily drawn out of ourselves.<\/p>\n

In his superb work “Christian Ethics”, Dietrich von Hildebrand lays down the distinction between two categories of importance we may associate with an experience.\u00a0 What he calls the “merely subjectively satisfying” are those things that gratify our passions.\u00a0 Their importance to us depends on our disposition at the time, disregarding any incidental good they may bring to us.\u00a0 Values, on the other hand, hold importance entirely independently of us.\u00a0 When we assign an importance to this experience for the satisfaction it brings us, we gratify our own ego.\u00a0 When we assign an importance to this experience for its own sake we glorify God.<\/p>\n

Not only beauty, but also truth and goodness hold this “value” according to Plato.\u00a0 And when confronted with each of these we are capable of sanctioning their inherent importance, independent of us.\u00a0 Josef Pieper notes in his book “Leisure: the Basis of Culture” that wonder begins where the self-explanatory ends.\u00a0 When through quiet reflection we awaken our awareness of an importance of things that escapes us in the noise of everyday life, we free ourselves to properly love that which is inherently lovable.\u00a0 We recognize that in totality they escape our comprehension and our grasp: we cannot possess them.\u00a0 Yet in a sense by sanctioning them we can lovingly give ourselves over to them and be possessed by them.<\/p>\n

But goodness, truth and beauty are all attributes of God.\u00a0 Our ultimate fulfillment lies in the final act of beholding.\u00a0 When we subject all things to our own ego and love only that which pleases us, we set our own ego as our final love.\u00a0 When we love all that demands our love whatever the cost to our own condition, our love is directed to Him Who bestows them their value.\u00a0 Left to behold ourselves eternally, we place ourselves in hell.\u00a0 Giving ourselves over to beholding God eternally, we enter heaven.\u00a0 It is reflection in silence that brings us the tranquility of mind and heart to open ourselves to the world of values by which God communicates Himself to us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One unfortunate artifact of the technological mindset of our age is that we are uncomfortable with what we cannot grasp.\u00a0 Silence makes us uneasy because it makes us aware of a certain emptiness inside ourselves.\u00a0 So we fill our lives with noise and distractions – television, games, music, frivolous shopping.\u00a0 Our advances are geared toward… [Read More]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[90],"tags":[796,217,453,1757],"class_list":{"0":"post-40161","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-faith-blog","7":"tag-communication","8":"tag-media","9":"tag-technology","10":"tag-values","11":"entry","12":"has-post-thumbnail"},"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":201925,"url":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/2016\/01\/silence-and-communion\/","url_meta":{"origin":40161,"position":0},"title":"Silence and Communion","author":"William Rooney","date":"January 20, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"The Christmas break was a joyous time to be with family and friends back home. Extroverted as I am, I tend to gravitate towards filling my \u201cbreak\u201d times with many activities and reunions with friends, in addition to helping out back at my home parish of St. Thomas Aquinas. I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog"","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/category\/acnm\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Church as Mystical Ship","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.austincnm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/tumblr_mctpz1ohvr1rb44tmo1_500-190x190.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":41650,"url":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/2013\/09\/value-silence\/","url_meta":{"origin":40161,"position":1},"title":"The Value of Silence","author":"Laurelin Ontai","date":"September 21, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"\u201cThat people today, often overwhelmed by noise, may rediscover the value of silence and listen to the voice of God and their brothers and sisters.\u201d \u2013 Pope Francis With Spotify and Netflix and texting and tablets, it seems like all the world wants is to make our lives noisy. In\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog"","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/category\/acnm\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"By Sean MacEntee","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.austincnm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Sean-MacEntee.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":244694,"url":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/2016\/05\/catholic-bloggers-atx-catholic-reflection-day-quick-takes\/","url_meta":{"origin":40161,"position":2},"title":"For Catholic Bloggers (ATX Catholic Reflection Day Quick Takes)","author":"Rachel","date":"May 5, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"For bloggers, as people who are often plugged in, absorbing information, writing and interacting online, etc - how blessed a day of reflection can be! I think this was a common sentiment for all of us that attended the ATX Catholic Day of Reflection last weekend. Speaking for myself, it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog"","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/category\/acnm\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Closing Mass @ the Schoenstatt Shrine","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/atxcatholic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/IMG_0323-550x413.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/atxcatholic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/IMG_0323-550x413.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/atxcatholic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/IMG_0323-550x413.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":720454,"url":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/2018\/03\/the-waze-of-god\/","url_meta":{"origin":40161,"position":3},"title":"The “Waze” of God","author":"Rachel","date":"March 3, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"You know that moment when you plug your destination into Waze, and you hope and thinking, \u201cAm I going to make it on time?...Waze says I\u2019ll get there 5:23pm\u2026but maybe the traffic will lighten up? Or it will find me a short cut??\u201d A couple of weeks ago I was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog"","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/category\/acnm\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/atxcatholic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/IMG_6463-550x310.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/atxcatholic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/IMG_6463-550x310.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/atxcatholic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/IMG_6463-550x310.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":19560,"url":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/2012\/07\/a-roaring-silence\/","url_meta":{"origin":40161,"position":4},"title":"A Roaring Silence","author":"Elizabeth","date":"July 16, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 It's 10:42 p.m. Sunday night. I'm reporting to work at a summer camp at 8:30 a.m. Monday morning. I'm tired from staffing weekend long retreat and my deadline is another to-do on my list before I get some much needed rest. So here it goes: Go to the website.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog"","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/category\/acnm\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.austincnm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/online-tiff1-630x462.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":11059,"url":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/2012\/02\/social-media-and-the-full-impact-of-the-gospel\/","url_meta":{"origin":40161,"position":5},"title":"Social Media and the Full Impact of the Gospel","author":"Meghan James","date":"February 8, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Technology. The definition from the Dictionary (as cited from http:\/\/www.dictionary.com) tech\u00b7nol\u00b7o\u00b7gy [tek-nol-uh-jee] noun: 1. the branch of knowledge that deals with the creation and\u00a0use of technical means and their interrelation with life,\u00a0society, and the environment, drawing upon such subjects\u00a0as industrial arts, engineering, applied science, and pure science. 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