As we break for the semester, it is important that we remember to take time to rest and recuperate from the busy year so far. I am reminded of a video I watched a while ago on Cardinal Robert Sarah (born in a small village in rural Guinea, he joined a minor seminary at age 12 and was ordained at 24) reminding us of the importance of silence. He recently published a book titled The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise. The video can be seen in the link below.

“Silence is not only not talking. Silence is deeper, because the great noise is inside ourselves,” the Cardinal says in the video. “Even in our churches, there is too much noise. So it’s not a place where we can encounter God, silently.”

“Silence makes life more similar to God, because God is silence. He talks in silence. We encounter him in silence. And if you remain with God, you become silent.”

Cardinal Sarah sees a lack of silence as a cause of the decline of religion in the West. “I think the reason why Western countries today are no longer believers is because they are talking all the time. They know no silence, and their faith is going down. Silence is really the moment where I construct myself as a human being related to God. And without God and without silence, we are lost. [...] Western society seems to be lost because when we are cut off from God, we are lost. It’s like a tree without roots.”

Let us take this holiday time to find silence in our busy lives and contemplate the mystery of God in our lives.

Here is the video: