By mid-afternoon, the idea of spending Christmas Day in a monastery may begin to seem very appealing – the liturgy is beautiful, the smell of beeswax mingling with incense and flowers a heady delight and, best of all, there is, surely, an atmosphere of beatific calm pervading all.
Alas, the reality is a little different. When I think of Christmas in the monastery, it is not the loveliness of the old Latin chants I think of first, but the effort that goes into ensuring that the liturgy is as perfect as we can make it, and the exhaustion that sets in around Vespers time on Christmas Day, not to mention the scratchiness that can follow. Monks and nuns are human, and our flaws often manifest themselves on the great feasts.
Fortunately, we have several days in which to get over our crotchetiness. Just as we do not begin our celebrations until the afternoon of Christmas Eve, so we go on celebrating until Epiphany and, in lesser degree, until the Baptism of the Lord. It is a season of rejoicing, and while many people associate Christmas with noise and jollity, in the monastery it is characterised by a profound and joyful silence. In the presence of the Word made flesh, our human words fall away, inadequate.
We know that once God has spoken, no further words are necessary, but in our Christmas liturgies we approach the mystery of the Incarnation every which way, struggling to understand the incomprehensible, tugging at its meaning, and we use our frail, human words to do that.
We forget that God has made it simple for us. He has come among us as a baby – helpless, vulnerable, his mighty speech reduced to an infant’s piercing cry. He cries out for love and compassion, healing and forgiveness, tenderness and pity for all his children, but we are so full of our own noise that we do not always hear. In the monastery no less than outside, we have to work at silence. Sometimes that means we have to be strict with others as well as ourselves.
So much human misery and need shows itself at Christmas. We can become almost deaf to the many appeals charities make to us, but the personal, the individual, can never go unnoticed. Our 24/7 email prayerline is busier than ever. Often someone will say that he (and it is usually “he” at this time of year) is tempted to take his own life. Debt, loneliness and broken relationships take their toll, especially when everyone else appears to be happy. A sense of failure can become overwhelming, the darkness within mirroring the darkness without.
We never know who will telephone or turn up at the door. St Benedict instructs us to welcome the stranger as if Christ, which is not easy when tired or out of sorts. Sometimes a kind word or an even kinder silence is all we can offer, and we should not be ashamed of that, for kindness is one of the things our world most lacks.
And if we fail? If we are snappy or irritable, what then? I think then we must ask God to make good our failure and, if we can, choose an appropriate moment for an apology, when our doing so will not stoke the fires of resentment. For the rest, we must allow silence to spread balm on the wounds our words, or the wounds of others, have dealt.
The liturgy gives us plenty of opportunity to reflect on the power of silence. The Christmas feasts that crowd thick and fast during the Octave all have an important element of silence in them.
There is the martyrdom of St Stephen, shedding his blood for Christ without letting a single word of recrimination fall from his lips; St John, filled with awe at the nearness of God, glimpsing the divine mystery but unable to speak of it except as love; the massacre of the Holy Innocents, not yet able to use words to hurt others or even to defend themselves, but put to death by the murderous decree of a jealous ruler; then there is the martyrdom of St Thomas, his silence more enigmatic than most, perhaps, but his life also ended by a king’s careless utterance.
Finally, there is the feast of the Holy Family, a “difficult” one for monks and nuns with its emphasis on the human family, but one we need to reflect on precisely because it is difficult. We think of Mary, the archetypal mulier fortis (strong woman), silently pondering in her heart; Joseph, embracing the purposes of God with quiet faith and trust; and Jesus himself, the Word made wordless for our sake.
What can we take from this? Many people enjoy a brief interlude of silence and find it refreshing, but if it goes on too long or is too complete, it makes them uneasy. A soundproof room, for example, can be disorientating. A couple of weeks of silence in a monastery has been known to drive people to midnight flits – anything to get away from this frightening absence of the everyday and familiar.
If physical silence can be disconcerting, interior silence can be devastating. Those who try to cultivate interior silence will tell you that, beautiful though it is, it strips us of everything we rely on to protect ourselves. Silence lets us see ourselves as we are, and most of us are not very keen on that.
But that is why Christmas in the monastery is so bound up with silence. Only silence can enable us to see that we need a Saviour; we cannot save ourselves. And only silence – the wondering silence of adoration – can express our gratitude for so great a gift as our Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world, at whose coming the angels danced, says St Basil, and a huge (silent) smile spread over the face of all creation.
Sister Catherine Wybourne is a Benedictine nun. She tweets @Digitalnun and blogs at ibenedictines.org
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