The Voices of Silence
This weekend I attended a retreat at Loyola Retreat Center
in Faulkner, MD. It was a good time of
renewal and refocusing for me. Loyola is
a Jesuit retreat house, so I spent the weekend with about sixty Roman Catholics
most of whom came as part of groups from parishes all over. To my knowledge, I was the only Protestant
there! I was a little out of my comfort
zone, but God was there and all went well.
I had the opportunity to participate in Catholic Mass—even
taking communion. While I wouldn’t
necessarily choose to worship this way every week, I try to practice a generous orthodoxy, and I appreciated the
rich sense of entering into the mystery and reverence of God. The Mass is
structured so that all of ones senses are engaged and directed toward God; the
structured liturgy definitely further hones ones focus on God. Although it was certainly a different worship
experience from what I typically do on a Sunday at Good Shepherd, it was certainly
not completely foreign to me. There was
enough similarity with our United Methodist liturgy (particularly the Great
Thanksgiving and the communion ritual) that I could feel pretty much at home
and I “faked” my way through the parts I wasn’t as familiar with. By the end of the weekend I figured most of
it out—I think…
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| The Icon of Christ and his friend, Abba Menas was a focus for our weekend. The original of this 5th c Egyptian icon hangs in the Louvre in Paris. |
The theme of the retreat was Speaking as One Friend to Another.
We looked at developing our friendship
with God. The Ignatian (Jesuit) Way is
one that emphasizes listening to God in prayer—as opposed to us doing all the
talking. To help facilitate that, the
retreat took place in an attitude of
silence. That meant that after our
first meal together on Friday evening, all participants were encouraged to keep
silent to the extent possible until the retreat was done.
God is always with us
and is constantly speaking, but too often we cover over God’s still small voice with the constant
clamor of our own. It is important that
we learn to silence ourselves and listen for those other voices in our lives.
With the exception of dinner on Friday, we ate all our meals
in silence; that was an interesting experience!
That’s one place where the natural tendency is for us to chat with the
persons sitting around us. I admit, I
missed not being able to get to know people more—something I am used to doing
at other retreats I have attended. On
the other hand, something interesting happened as the weekend progressed. I
found that I became increasingly aware of so many of the other voices (sounds) around me—e.g., the clamor of silverware, the
soft music playing in the background, and the many voices in my head—and even of other ways I could “communicate”
with others.
As an introvert, not
talking much for 36 hours wasn’t too hard, but I became keenly aware that I think a whole lot of things I never say! The real challenge for me was to silence that
internal conversation in my head and start listening for those other voices that God wants to use to
develop our friendship.
Next: Wrestling With Jesus' Questions.
