By David McGovern
I HEARD something at Mass for the first time last week. Or, more precisely, I didn’t hear something.
For reasons I can’t recall right now, I found myself experiencing the Mass outside.
Sitting on a bench located against a wall just outside the church entrance, I was struck when, just before Communion, I heard it. Absolute stillness. Complete silence.
Even as I write, I recall the peace in that moment.
Because I was sitting behind a wall, I couldn’t see what was causing the apparent hush.
And it was so perfect, so serene, that I didn’t want to get up and look. I didn’t need too.
If I had stood up, and shifted myself into the doorway, I am pretty sure I would have seen the priest distributing Communion to the extraordinary ministers.
It was about that point in the Mass anyway. But I stayed where I was, waiting for – but not wanting – the moment to pass. Eventually it did. Some birds chirped in a nearby tree.
A car engine spluttered into life in a neighbouring street.
The choir swelled into life. I went to Communion, and then eventually made my way home to our little townhouse in Wellington Point.
In their song, The Sounds of Silence, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, create a powerful image of a man walking along “narrow streets of cobblestone”, collar upturned and eyes squinting against the “flash of a neon light”.
It is perhaps a lament for the way we have let our senses become assaulted, our eyes, ears, and even our hearts and minds, given over to ear buds, mobile phones and a constant state of “being in touch”.
As the song declares:
“And in the naked light I saw
10,000 people, maybe more
People talking, without speaking
People hearing, without listening”
There was something providential, or divinely inspired, about the absence of sound during that Mass I was at on a recent Sunday. It occurred just before Lent began.
This is a notoriously tricky time for me. Each year, I rack my brain, trying to come up with something that I can “give up”. I’m not a big drinker so relinquishing alcohol is not really a “sacrifice”.
It’s the same with sweets, chips and lollies.
But noise. Ah yes, that’s something I definitely crave.
For me, noise is a reflection that something is happening. It implies action, possibility, energy.
I can’t jump in the car without putting on the radio.
I often make up playlists, for my iPod, to work to, to work out to, to clean the house to, to write to.
Even as I type this, the old dual-cassette player/radio is humming away, it’s classical music, but still.
In the moment before I went to Communion, in that complete and utter silence, I heard the Lord speaking to me loud and clear. “Slow down,” He was saying. “Tune into Me; hear me in the world around you.”
Later, while I was at home, tidying up and carrying out chores, Celena did something that is most unusual for her. She opened up her laptop and put some music on.
Her selection included songs by bands like The Killers, David Gray, Matchbox 20, Garbage and Rob Thomas. It’s music that I know and music that I love.
Celena playing her music – the silence in my local parish during Mass. What’s the connection?
It’s that in both those moments, the Lord was reminding me that our life can be full of hustle and bustle, or it can be characterised by moments of tranquillity.
The choice, ultimately, is ours. But if we are not listening with the ear of our heart, we may miss “words, like silent raindrops” that can parch our spiritual thirst.
I was moved by the absence of sound at Mass that morning. Later that day, Celena was letting me know, in her own way, that she was moved by my attentiveness and presence around the house. It was there, in her song choices.
In both instances – the silence and the songs – the effect was the same. I felt loved and I felt uplifted.
And that was music to my ears.
David McGovern is Catholic Mission director in Brisbane archdiocese.
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