INBOX INSPIRATIONS
December 23, 2020
Silent Night
Dear Friends,
For me, the number one Christmas carol has always been Silent Night.
It was the first carol I remember as a child.
I have always seen Silent Night as the foundational Christmas carol, the one that proclaims the heart and soul of what Christmas is all about.
After all, doesn’t God come to us in “Emmanuel, which means God is with us,” in the silence of the night?
Jesus did not first appear to us in fanfare, with lots of words and noise.
He, Emmanuel, was born in utter simplicity, at nighttime, when things were silent.
This seems very intentional – that God would break through to us and our world in utter silence.
Maybe that was the best possible or even the only possible way to get our attention.
So, could it be that we, in turn, need to be silent to take in and appreciate what this night is all about?
Could it be that to encounter God, to absorb this profound mystery, we need silence?
Could it be that we need to let go of our busyness and just be, just be, here and now, open to this singular and sacred event, to God becoming incarnate?
Could it be that we easily forget “Emmanuel, God is with is” when we do not make space for silence in our lives?
Without that silence, might we even live as if God is not with us?
I believe that deep down, we all know that this is true – that we need some silence in our lives if we are really going to be in relationship with the person of that first silent night.
“Instinctively, we realize that the encounter with Emmanuel calls us to silence in order to illumine the once hidden reality of intimacy with God…. From the beginning, Christ intended for us to meet him in silence, whereby stillness of mind and heart, body and spirit become encounter with Emmanuel.”
Father Michael Schleupner
(Quotation above from: From Hero to Servant to Mystic by Father Scott P. Detisch, 2019)
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