16-c

16th Sunday-CGood morning every one, I am so happy to welcome you all for today’s Holy Mass. Dear friends, every time you come to Church, God speaks to us in silence and every time you come to church and pray silently, Christ our Lord showers upon you the Spirit and heals you all and every time you receive the church’s sacraments, we understand the language of silence.
Once a man tried his best to find a job but nothing happened and then at last he got a job in a local zoo. All he had to do was just dressing like a monkey and entertain people. Though in the beginning, he could not do it well and then he began to entertain people well jumping up and down, rolling over and screaming and yelling. One day as he was jumping, he fell into the lion’s cage. He knew that he was going to die. He began to cry and cream saying, “ please, Lion let me go and I don’t want to die”. The lion came closer to him and said, ‘Do not scream and we both are going to lose our job”.
Today I invite you all to meditate upon the value of Silence. People say that Silence is gold. Silence is the source of great strength. Silence is a fence around wisdom. When all the noise is gone there is only God.
One day a man went to his spiritual Master and said, “Master, I want to find god and what should I do”. The master said, ‘go and close your door and be still and the silence will teach you the way to find God”.
UNQUIET SILENCE Today we see many people practicing silence but sometimes their silence is more like an exterior absence of words or a stillness from noise. They do not use words but their mind is unquiet, filled with words, noise, ideas, questions, doubts and conflicts. They are confused inside and they are having mind conversation. Silence is only on the surface but inside they are so confused and talking louder and louder. This is called unquiet silence.
Once a teacher wanted to show his students a new technique of shooting an arrow. They covered his eyes with a cloth and then he shot his arrow. when he opened his eyes, he saw the target with no arrow in it and when he looked at his students they looked so embarrassed because their teacher failed. He asked them what lesson he intended to teach them and they said, “you wanted to teach us how to shoot at the target without looking. The teacher said, “No’ I wanted to teach you if you wanted to achieve anything you should not forget your target and keep an eye on the target. Concentrate. and practice of silence helps you to concentrate and keep an eye on your target.
SPEECHLESS SILENCE persons under sudden shock and deeply excited by fear also experience silence. This silence may be wordless and it may give someone for sometime speechlessness or momentary silence. But it does not have lasting peace in it. It only causes confusion and chaos and it also creates anxiety and tension.
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TRANQUIL OR MINDFUL SILENCE Mindful silence is not forced by external or internal factors. It is natural and spontaneous, active and sublime. It wells up form the depth of one’s personality and overflows with a certain rhythm. This silence radiates energy and emanates vitality. In its very essence, you see peace and joy. For example, in today’s first reading, As Abraham was sitting in stillness and silence, there happened something extraordinary. He began to recognize Angels. And we see how he conversed with them and invited them to dine with him. The angels delivered a good news to him. All these things happened because of his stillness and silence and all these things happened because of his deep connection with God in silence. when all the noise is gone, there we see only God.
And in today’s gospel reading, What is Mary doing? Though every one was so busy and running around and even her own sister Martha was anxious and worried about cooking, cleaning and doing something, She was sitting at the feet of Christ silently and because of her stillness, she began to recognize every word that came from the mouth of God. she knew that people do not live on bread alone but every word that comes from the mouth of God. And Christ our Lord says that being in stillness at his feet is the better way and being in silence and listening to Him is the way to experience peace, harmony, joy and happiness. Only practicing silence, we recognize angels around us and only in silence we experience God in Christ and only practicing silence we become god’s Messengers to our brothers and sisters in need. So let us practice silence and find God in our brothers and sisters Amen.