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Faith brings captive inner freedom

14 Nov 2010 - Preaching the News for Sunday

This Sunday, we hear from the prophet Malachi that the day is coming when “evildoers will be stubble” and the “sun of justice” will arise “with its healing rays.” A former hostage of Colombian rebels who endured six-and-a-half years in jungle captivity before being freed in a dramatic rescue that killed many of her captors has written a book detailing how her ordeal strengthened her Catholic faith. Ingrid Betancourt’s Even Silence Has an End details her agonizing captivity during which she was at times chained by the neck, mocked, and dragged through the Colombian jungle. Born in Colombia and raised in France, Betancourt was captured by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, while campaigning for president in 2002. Asked to describe her prayer life while in captivity, Betancourt said in an interview that she lacked a spiritual discipline at first but after about a year began reading the Bible. “For the first time in my life I read it from the first page to the last. It transformed my relationship with God.” Betancourt was able to spend hours a day in prayer and meditation. “My faith was my first source of comfort,” she said, “understanding and trusting in God: The idea that even if I couldn’t understand why I was there and that it seemed so unfair to be in that situation, there was this God who could see beyond my pain and that was taking care of me in a way that made my ordeal part of his project.” She also spoke with her captors about God. “Many of the guerillas who were acting as my guards and officially were not supposed to believe in God would come to me with words that were very astonishing. They would whisper things like 'I am praying for you. I cannot say "I believe in God," but I truly believe in God and know that one day you will be free.’ " Source: An interview with Religion News Service edited by Whitney Jones

god Faith Bible farc colombia even silence has an end ingrid betancourt

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Homily stories

26 Feb 2012 - First Sunday of Lent, Cycle B

A FRIEND of mine is a Trappistine nun who spends a good part of each day in silent prayer. She once told me the hardest adjustment she faced when entering the monastery was realizing how much "noise" was going on inside her heart and head--especially at times of silent prayer. That was helpful to hear. I thought it was just me who had such a difficult time quieting down for prayer. When I set aside time for quiet prayer my brain quickly generates thoughts and fears, desires and anxieties, inner turmoil and random troubling emotions. Maybe that's what Jesus experienced when he went out to the desert. Today's gospel tells how he went out into the desert and encountered wild beasts. Because he was like us in all things but sin, those wild beasts might simply have been the very human array of wild emotions, notions, and passions roiling within him. The good news is that the gospel says he was also ministered to by angels. The same can be true for us. This Lent as you take up new practices of prayer, don't be discouraged if the first thing you find in the silence is a noisy self. Continue patiently, trusting that you will, in due time, encounter the angels of peace, serenity, surrender, and love to comfort you and guide you past the wild beasts and into the presence of God.

Authors Tom McGrath

silence Prayer Quiet

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Homily stories

08 Aug 2010 - Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C

The whole day, even before sun-up, his son was chattering away. They were on their first fishing trip together and his son was excited. It soon became clear that the boy hadn't had much experience being quiet. Most of his activities--even at home alone in his room--involved noise. His computer games were all noisy, his radio was always on, at school the work was often done in groups, and his basketball team was one noisy bunch. And so the boy found it hard to be quiet. All the way in the car he chattered and asked questions. When they got to the lake other fishermen gave him the evil eye and paddled their boats away from the father and son team as fast as they were able. The whole day was one comment or question after another. And so the father was not surprised when they arrived home and the boy continued his non-stop narrative, but this time he was filling his mother in on all that he had seen and heard. "It's so quiet up there, Mom, and you can hear the birds singing and the bees buzzing and deer came right up to the shore and drank from the lake and we saw a hawk overhead and a fallen tree is a good place to catch bass and some fishermen don't catch and release but we did and it's important to be real quiet so you can pay attention to where the fish might be . . . " Well the lesson was heard; now all he needed was a bit more practice.

Authors Tom McGrath

fishing father and son silence

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Exploring the word

03 Mar 2019 - Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C

Abraham Lincoln said it a little differently than the sage who composed our First Reading, but it’s the same idea. Lincoln said: “It is better to remain silent and thought a fool, than to speak up and remove all doubt.” Since the time of ancient Egypt, many have agreed that, compared with most speech, “silence is golden.” And silence earns its glorious reputation because we often use language so badly. Sometimes we lie; sometimes we just bend the facts a little. We say what we don’t know yet assert it as fact. We speak impulsively and cause irreparable harm. We chatter aimlessly, suffocating our listeners with our prattle. We gossip and ruin reputations. We voice opinions, some of which may reveal how dark our hearts really are. Before any election, we scrutinize the candidates to hear how their words confirm or betray their character. Of course when we talk, we give ourselves away too, despite our best intentions. That's why there's a law that says, “You have the right to remain silent.” We might want to exercise that right more often. The words we speak not only reveal us; they also have a way of deepening who we are. This shouldn’t surprise us, as we confess our faith in an incarnate God, a word enfleshed. God takes on flesh, and becomes all the things that flesh is: fragile, hungry, in need of friendship, capable of bleeding and dying. But in Jesus, flesh also becomes all the things the divine word is: life-giving, truth-telling, soul-healing—not to mention, stronger than death and even than hell. All of this might make us more mindful of the words we choose. When you and I speak bitterly as a matter of habit, we harden into cynics. When we think violent thoughts, it’s only a matter of time before we indulge violent actions. Remember the story of My Fair Lady? In a class-conscious society, this girl who speaks with a low-class dialect is not considered a “lady” at the start of the story. But as she learns to overcome her dialect, the power of new speech transforms her. A new identity blooms in her and she becomes one with it. Words take on flesh—and flesh, words. God’s word of love becomes the baby of Bethlehem. The stories Jesus tells of forgiveness become the man on the cross in Jerusalem. Words become flesh as surely as a tree produces its fruit—good or rotten—with integrity to its inner nature. If we intend gentleness, we must use softer words. If we’re unready within to produce loving speech just yet, then it is surely better to remain silent.

Authors Alice Camille

abraham lincoln silence silence is golden talk words

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Exploring the word

03 Mar 2019 - Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C

Abraham Lincoln said it a little differently than the sage who composed our First Reading, but it’s the same idea. Lincoln said: “It is better to remain silent and thought a fool, than to speak up and remove all doubt.” Since the time of ancient Egypt, many have agreed that, compared with most speech, “silence is golden.” And silence earns its glorious reputation because we often use language so badly. Sometimes we lie; sometimes we just bend the facts a little. We say what we don’t know yet assert it as fact. We speak impulsively and cause irreparable harm. We chatter aimlessly, suffocating our listeners with our prattle. We gossip and ruin reputations. We voice opinions, some of which may reveal how dark our hearts really are. Before any election, we scrutinize the candidates to hear how their words confirm or betray their character. Of course when we talk, we give ourselves away too, despite our best intentions. That's why there's a law that says, “You have the right to remain silent.” We might want to exercise that right more often. The words we speak not only reveal us; they also have a way of deepening who we are. This shouldn’t surprise us, as we confess our faith in an incarnate God, a word enfleshed. God takes on flesh, and becomes all the things that flesh is: fragile, hungry, in need of friendship, capable of bleeding and dying. But in Jesus, flesh also becomes all the things the divine word is: life-giving, truth-telling, soul-healing—not to mention, stronger than death and even than hell. All of this might make us more mindful of the words we choose. When you and I speak bitterly as a matter of habit, we harden into cynics. When we think violent thoughts, it’s only a matter of time before we indulge violent actions. Remember the story of My Fair Lady? In a class-conscious society, this girl who speaks with a low-class dialect is not considered a “lady” at the start of the story. But as she learns to overcome her dialect, the power of new speech transforms her. A new identity blooms in her and she becomes one with it. Words take on flesh—and flesh, words. God’s word of love becomes the baby of Bethlehem. The stories Jesus tells of forgiveness become the man on the cross in Jerusalem. Words become flesh as surely as a tree produces its fruit—good or rotten—with integrity to its inner nature. If we intend gentleness, we must use softer words. If we’re unready within to produce loving speech just yet, then it is surely better to remain silent.

Authors Alice Camille

abraham lincoln silence silence is golden talk words

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Exploring the word

18 Dec 2022 - Fourth Sunday of Advent, Cycle A

One of the great mysteries of Christian faith concerns the silence of God. It’s the one mystery that can make or break us as believers. Why does God not speak, say, when the serpent first makes his dark proposal to Eve? So many centuries of evil and suffering might have been prevented! Why, for that matter, doesn’t God step in throughout salvation history rescuing more people, raising up more prophets and wise leaders, warning of disasters natural, moral, and military? While it’s true that God does prevent the random tragedy (sending an angel to stay Abraham’s knife raised against Isaac, rescuing Hagar and Ishmael in the desert), or save the occasional family (Noah’s, Lot’s), the greater biblical record is loaded with grief and misery that the Almighty might have stopped with a word. And didn’t. Every family who’s ever prayed for God to cure a child or reverse a famine knows that the odds are slender for a miraculous intervention. Much of the time our prayers seem to be met with that same wall of silence that can be mistaken for divine indifference, if not absence or even nonexistence. The silence of God is necessary to preserve human freedom, theologians will insist. This answer may be intellectually satisfying. But on the personal level, in the hour of human need, it can feel downright cruel. Some of us might sacrifice a bit of precious freedom to have the assurance of a divine hand reaching in to save us in a timely manner from the consequences of mortal—and moral—frailty. We can know very little of the meaning of God’s vast silences until the time when all mysteries will be answered or swept aside. But as we meditate on this mystery, we must recall the cry of Jesus, “My God, my God, why have you forgotten me?” If ever the heavens should open and the voice of God be heard with consolations and assurances, it was in that hour. The Father was silent throughout the Passion of the Son. Jesus suffered and died without a word of compassion, hope, or restitution offered. The Paschal Mystery is primarily the puzzle of the “Why?” that human suffering inevitably evokes. The divine answer comes in three days’ time, and it is the perfect answer to all sin, suffering, and death. Whether we accept the answer or not defines our stature as believers. Seen and unseen If we are shocked and unnerved by the silence of God, we are equally astounded and unbalanced in the times when God does speak and act in our world. When the Word became flesh in Bethlehem, angels sang, shepherds worshipped, and kings traveled across the known world to kneel in awe. This Word spoken in Bethlehem was not so different from the primordial word that brought creation into being, for it created a brand-new reality out of a void, salvation out of the world’s despair. If you and I object to God’s apparent absences, what would we do with the absolute presence of God delivered into our midst? What would we say if the angel of the Lord appeared to us—in a dream as to Joseph, or before us outright as with Mary—and invited us into the heart of God’s saving purposes? “God with us,” Emmanuel, may sound initially like the answer to our prayers. But consider what it actually meant to Joseph and Mary. Joseph must accept the unlikely and unreasonable conditions of the Incarnation, which will disrupt and derail the rest of his life and all his expectations of marriage and fatherhood. His standing in the community, with a pregnant fiancé, will be forever colored by this event, as we know from the snide remarks about paternity that followed Jesus throughout his ministry. Mary, too, begins this journey in faithful submission to the divine intervention with her little “yes”—a word that rocked human history in both directions. But what did it mean for Mary herself, a young girl, to accept the burden of an inexplicable pregnancy and a divine Son born to live and die the most abnormal of destinies? In our every recitation of the Creed, we profess faith in what is seen and unseen. Yet we still feel the anguish of God’s inscrutable presences and absences as they disrupt or disappoint us. Some of us might prefer that God would co-opt and micromanage human history. Others might wish that God would stand a little farther back and not expect or demand so much from us. God’s apparent silences may leave us doubting the divine, but God’s definitive utterances have not cleared up the confusion or the turmoil to everyone’s satisfaction. Words require an audience God speaks being and goodness into the world, but humanity chooses evil and destruction. God speaks the divine Word himself into time, and people determine at once to kill him. God speaks through prophets who are likewise ignored, persecuted, and eliminated. If it seems to us that God is too silent, too distant, perhaps we might also consider that God’s definitive speech and presence rarely finds a hearing and a home in us. We have another chance, this Sunday, to receive the Word of God into our hearts. We have a chance to receive the very life of God into our hands in the Eucharist. In just two more days, we celebrate the absolute gift of God into our midst, into our human reality with all its evil and suffering and limitation and frailty. God comes obscurely into the world, in poverty and irrelevance as a child of an unloved race. If we wonder where God is and why God doesn’t speak, maybe we are looking in the wrong places or listening for the wrong voice. Applying the word The obedience of faith The root of obedience is “listening.” Those who listen to God’s Word also give their assent in a word, like Mary who says yes; or in action, like Joseph who quietly takes Mary into his home. Our Advent waiting is almost over, and we have had time to ponder our own response to the Word made flesh that is always coming into our world. How will we utter our yes, and how will we act to demonstrate that we have heard and understood what God is saying? Related scripture links God speaks, some listen: Gen. 2:16-17 (Adam); 6:12-21 (Noah); 12:1-4 (Abraham); 16:9-16 (Hagar); 19:12-14 (Lot); Exod. 3:4-10 (Moses); Matt. 3:17; 17:5 (disciples) Remarks about Jesus’ paternity: Mark 6:1-6 My God, my God: Mark 15:34; Matt. 27:46 Catechism links Birth of Jesus: CCC 430-440; 496-498 Angels: CCC 328-336 Obedience: CCC 143; 2087

Authors Alice Camille

the silence of god obedience of faith

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Featured Exploring the Word

02 Mar 2025 - Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C

Abraham Lincoln said it a little differently than the sage who composed our First Reading, but it’s the same idea. Lincoln said: “It is better to remain silent and thought a fool, than to speak up and remove all doubt.” Since the time of ancient Egypt, many have agreed that, compared with most speech, “silence is golden.” And silence earns its glorious reputation because we often use language so badly. Sometimes we lie; sometimes we just bend the facts a little. We say what we don’t know yet assert it as fact. We speak impulsively and cause irreparable harm. We chatter aimlessly, suffocating our listeners with our prattle. We gossip and ruin reputations. We voice opinions, some of which may reveal how dark our hearts really are. Before any election, we scrutinize the candidates to hear how their words confirm or betray their character. Of course when we talk, we give ourselves away too, despite our best intentions. That's why there's a law that says, “You have the right to remain silent.” We might want to exercise that right more often. The words we speak not only reveal us; they also have a way of deepening who we are. This shouldn’t surprise us, as we confess our faith in an incarnate God, a word enfleshed. God takes on flesh, and becomes all the things that flesh is: fragile, hungry, in need of friendship, capable of bleeding and dying. But in Jesus, flesh also becomes all the things the divine word is: life-giving, truth-telling, soul-healing—not to mention, stronger than death and even than hell. All of this might make us more mindful of the words we choose. When you and I speak bitterly as a matter of habit, we harden into cynics. When we think violent thoughts, it’s only a matter of time before we indulge violent actions. Remember the story of My Fair Lady? In a class-conscious society, this girl who speaks with a low-class dialect is not considered a “lady” at the start of the story. But as she learns to overcome her dialect, the power of new speech transforms her. A new identity blooms in her and she becomes one with it. Words take on flesh—and flesh, words. God’s word of love becomes the baby of Bethlehem. The stories Jesus tells of forgiveness become the man on the cross in Jerusalem. Words become flesh as surely as a tree produces its fruit—good or rotten—with integrity to its inner nature. If we intend gentleness, we must use softer words. If we’re unready within to produce loving speech just yet, then it is surely better to remain silent. Adapted from a previously published Exploring the word.

Authors Alice Camille

silence talk words

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