Silence

Today is the Feast of the Holy Family. On Christmas Day, Mary and Joseph weren’t just a husband and wife anymore, they became a family–a Holy Family, the most holy family to all of Christendom. We revere that on this day in the Catholic Church, perhaps in other denominations too, I am ignorant.

We take as our patron the Holy Family; the formation house is called the Holy Family convent. We are to model ourselves after the Holy Family of Nazareth. I suppose that family didn’t roll their eyes, argue about misunderstandings, grumble under their breath, storm out of rooms, have secret scenarios in which the scenarioan is always right (Well, I am!), and so on and so forth.

Almost everyone who enters religious life will never be a biological mother or father, but that doesn’t mean we still shouldn’t imitate the family model. It’s a weird blessing to be thrown together with people so different from you that what you thought was a diverse group of friends you came from were actually carbon copies of your own personality just wrapped up in more fashionable outfits with better jobs.

Being thrown together comes with animosity. The animosity takes away the blessing. Who is responsible? I could say it isn’t me, but I am just as much a part of the problem as everyone else. It is in that problem in which we should find a new blessing.

I could either be sarcastically silent or I could take the potential of the misunderstanding, die to myself in a new way and be silent.

There is much to be said for silence.

It is within silence where we find ourselves the most. It is within silence that we get those funny feelings. It is within silence where we can do the most good. Silence is difficult to obtain, but it is worthwhile.

It is within silence that we hear God.