“Christ’s whole earthly life – his words and deeds, his silences and sufferings, indeed his manner of being and speaking – is Revelation of the Father.” – CCC #516
“Lack of silence refers to that mode of liturgical prayer in which we barely pause between elements of the celebration. Rather, we move with haste from one posture to another, one prayer to another, one rite to another. We are invited to call to mind our sins, but then, with not a breath in between, the litany or the confession of sins is begun. Let us pray, we hear, but the assembly is allowed no time to pray; we move immediately to the collect, the prayer that was meant to collect the prayers of those assembled and bring them to a fitting conclusion. Yet there is an essential relationship between silence and speech. The many languages of the liturgy, spoken in word or ritual action, will be far more powerful and achieve their full effect if they emerge out of silence and lead to silence. We need a careful balance between speech and silence, action and stillness. The pause allows for contemplative engagement; a frenetic pace of liturgy prohibits it. And the quality of silence is more important than its duration. A deep, momentary silence is more powerful than a longer fidgety and fretful silence.” – Kathleen Hughes, Saying Amen: Entering into the Mystery of the Sacraments.
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