Ambiguous silence

Years of resentful silence must have passed the eldest son in the parable narrated by the Gospel of Luke, if when the father rejoices at the return of his younger son, he blurts out: I have obeyed you for years and you have never given me a kid to celebrate with the friends. Come back this son of yours who burned your money with prostitutes and kill the fatted calf! Silence is not always good.

Abba Poemen was an Egyptian monk who lived between the 4th and 5th centuries, known for the sweet mercy suggested by his own religious name, Poemen, meaning shepherd. He said: "There is a man who seems to be silent and his heart judges others; is one who always talks!
And there is another who speaks from morning to evening and keeps silence, because he doesn't say anything that isn't useful ".
There is a discernment of silence, indeed, of silences. The silence of the eldest son already counts the money that will touch him on the death of his father, of whom he is afraid and whom he never loved.

There is hostile silence that measures the other, despises him, slams the door in his face. There is the opportunist silence of those who want to keep control over the other and be the one to lead the game of the relationship: like the hypocritical silence of the religious leaders of the Holy Spirit who evade the question of Jesus, where did baptism come from? of John, whether by God or by men. There is the silence of the self-deception of those who are nailed to their ego and try in every way to polish their image, like the Pharisee in the Temple, closed in a monologue in which he is the only yardstick.

There is the silence of those who spend their lives in the greedy acquisition of virtues, used to build their own monument to show off with others. There is the silence of those who refuse to recognize that behind certain apparently beautiful impulses there is some hidden vice: like those who do not want to take note of their homosexual tendencies and exchange the fear they feel at the idea of ​​facing the his problem, with the vocation to become a priest. He could be a splendid priest, if only he humbly recognized what he insists on burying.

Just as the virtuous at all costs could become a saint if he had the humility to admit that what he claims to do for others is good for himself above all. These are all “cursed silences”, said Giovanni Climaco.

To cure us of these silences of death, Jesus kneads the earth with his saliva, puts it on our lips, sticks his fingers in our ears, urges us to open up: "Effatà!". He would like to hear us finally say a word of life, the only one that comes from blessed silence, which is silent so as not to accuse and to give the other time to learn to love.
The humble silence that leaves us free to be, at the cost of not being understood. The silence of God.

Flaminia Morandi
NP January 2016