“Mary, cathedral of silence” is one of the titles with which Father Tonino Bello presents Mary in his wonderful book entitled Mary, Woman of Our Time. And he asks: “But why is Mary a cathedral of silence? First of all, because she is a woman of few words. In the Gospel, she speaks only four times. At the angel’s announcement. When she sings the Magnificat. When she finds Jesus in the temple. And at Cana of Galilee. Then, after urging the wedding servants to listen to the one word that matters, she remains silent forever.
But her silence is not merely the absence of voices. It is not the emptiness of sounds. Nor is it the result of a particular asceticism of simplicity. Rather, it is the theological shell of a presence. The shell of a fullness. The womb that safeguards the Word,” because, as Pope Francis reminds us, she “with silence, covered the mystery she did not understand, and with this silence allowed that mystery to grow and flourish in hope.”
Heaven is well acquainted with silence, and the Gospel brings us face to face with two great “champions of silence”: Joseph, a just man, a “man of silence” who knew how to “make room for the presence of the Word made flesh, Jesus” (Pope Francis), and Mary, who, indeed, “treasured everything in her heart.”
At Mary’s school, then, we learn the secret and beauty of silence!
Silence can create “spaces shaped to fit the heart,” spaces where we can find ourselves again, pause for a moment from the haste that usually drives us ever forward, and open our hearts to prayer or meditation.
The book by Father Emiliano Antenucci, The Virgin of Silence, invites us to experience the spirituality of silence and savor all its richness: from her, the Virgin of Silence, we learn the beauty and precious gift of silence!
