Seeds of Sound In Silence Grow

“I love this song.” It’s a phrase that is much more likely to come out of some of my best friends’ mouths than out of my own. You can ask them. I’ve never really been one to fall in love with a song, to hanker after music, to desire it. And I don’t usually go out of my way to listen to music, because, in general, I prefer silence.

But music, I’m beginning to slowly discover, can make the times of silence in my life more fruitful. Or at least music makes the silence more reflective than routine. It’s like the difference between digging a hole in the ground for the sheer entertainment of seeing how deep you can get and digging a hole for the purpose of planting a seed in it.

Music in the in-between-times can help the silence to have a purpose. Music plants seeds.

So silence and sound work together, and sometimes it is good to soak myself in sounds in order that my silence will benefit from it.

I know this because the lyrics of Josh Garrels’ song “At The Table”—which I have been listening to and learning to play on guitar—have been stirring around in my brain for the past week.

I went the ways of wayward winds

In a world of trouble and sin

A story of prodigality, reconciliation, and conversion, the lyrics cry out to me as a sinner. There is always a place for me at the table of my Mother, the Church.

For each of us, there is a place. We are welcomed in the arms of our loving mother; our Father comes running to meet us. The prodigal son is welcomed to the banquet of the Eucharist.

Quotation from "At The Table," by Josh Garrels

Christ: In the Flesh

I am blessed to have an awesome internship in the same city as my college, which means that I get to stay here over the summer and continue with it. Hurray! One cool aspect of the job is that I frequently get to read the writings of the Popes, particularly of Pope Francis.

As I was skimming through Pope Francis’ most recent encyclical, Evangelii Gaudium, in hopes of finding a quote to use with one of the magazine articles I was copyediting, I stumbled across this gem: “God’s word teaches that our brothers and sisters are the prolongation of the incarnation for each of us: ‘As you did it to one of these, the least of my brethren, you did it to me’ (Mt 25:40).”

This is a profound idea—that each person I meet is Christ. Because that’s what Pope Francis means when he says that each one is “the prolongation of the incarnation.” The Pope really isn’t saying anything new, because the Church has always taught that each person is made in the image and likeness of God, but the way that he says this made me stop and think about the idea more fully.

When I desire to experience Christ physically present, my first instinct is to go to the Eucharist, since God has truly shown me that He is present within that tiny host. But if each person that I meet is “the prolongation of the incarnation,” then Christ is also physically present in each human being. Each person shows me Christ in the flesh, in his or her own flesh. That’s what incarnation means.

Like I said before, the teaching that God lives in each person is not a new idea for me or for the Church, but it is one that I am only now beginning to let impact my life. It means that if I want to love Christ, I must love the person right in front of me. I must be convicted that each person is Christ. And I have to act appropriately towards them—with an abundance of love and respect. No person is too small, too poor, too beautiful, too sick, too smart, too talkative, or too anything else for me to love them, since they are Christ.

But I fail at this all the time. So Pope Francis’ words are a challenge for me, a challenge to live out a deeper and more radical love of Christ by loving each person I meet. They are a challenge to seek the face of Christ in every single human being. It’s like a giant “Where’s Waldo?” game. Only with God.

Blessed is He who comes...

As we were singing the "Hosanna" in Mass yesterday, it struck me that this is what the people were singing to Christ as He entered into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. A few days later, the same crowd betrayed Him, hurling insults and spitting in His face. 

And so later in the chapel I asked myself: Am I praising Him with my lips and betraying Him with my heart, like the people of Jerusalem? The question made me uncomfortable. (It should probably make you uncomfortable too, if you really think about it.)

Ultimately, the fruit of my prayer with this question was that I must not simply praise the Lord with my mouth, casually or superficially when life is peachy. No, I must praise Him from the very depth of my being, thanking Him at all times for the love and mercy He continually showers upon me. During the Mass I must turn towards Christ as He enters through the gates of my heart, disguised under the appearance of bread, and I must praise Him with my whole self. And later, when I leave, I cannot turn away from Him, for He still resides in my heart. My whole life must proclaim the glory of the Lord.