--Margaret Brophy
     When I first entered the seminary in 1965, we observed the "Grand Silence" from the end of night prayer to after Mass and breakfast the next morning.  I broke the silence rule often.  We didn't have television or radio--not even the newspaper.  Maybe I needed to talk to keep my sanity as a 20-something-year-old.
     Now I crave for and appreciate some silence in my life.  I guess living in the United States with all the speed of modern life, instant everything, something to do every day of the week, being bombarded with an "information superhighway", radio and television, e-mail, the noise of jets and cars speeding down the freeway system, I want and need silence.  Going to a football game at the Dome is pure hell for my ears, and my soul.
     I long for that, "Silent Night" of Christ's birth.  In the Divine Office, prayers said by priests, nuns, monks and ordinary people, we read this coming week:  'while all things were in quiet silence and the night was in the midst of its course, your almighty word, O Lord, leapt down from your throne in heaven' (Wisdom 18:14-15).  God still comes to us in silence, but now in the silence of our daily lives.
     The Spanish mystic, Saint John of the Cross, once wrote that God understands only one language--that of silent love.  No wonder Jesus slipped away from the apostles many times to speak the language of God--silent love.  Even my parents would sit silently side by side in the same room, because talking would disturb their loving union.  Love doesn't need a lot of words.  But love requires silence.
     During the 12 Days of Christmas, try to find time for silence.  Psychologists, poets, writers and saints have all understood the need for silence in our lives.  Here are some quotations about silence that give us a deeper insight into the universal thirst for silence.