Tuesday December 19, 2017
Both readings of the day describe how God intervenes in our moments of despair and barrenness and makes our life fruitful. Manoah and his wife were without children, and so were Zachariah and Elizabeth. Given the thinking of the times, they would have been considered cursed by God. But how wonderfully God intervenes in their life and changes the curse into an exotic blessing! Often God’s interventions stun us into silence. Zachariah’s inability to speak was a gentle punishment for his disbelief for, as a priest of the Lord and a member of a priestly family, he should have been more inclined to trust God’s mysterious ways. However, the inability to speak might have been partly due to him being stunned by the goodness of the Lord. Who wouldn’t be, when grace abounds around us? We have the example of St. Thomas Aquinas. It is said that he, who had written volumes on God, went into a prolonged silence after having been granted a vision from God. As a wise saying in the East goes: “Those who speak, do not know; those who know, do not speak.” When the Mystery descends on us, words fail.
Why not practice some holy silence today, contemplating the Mystery of God?
