In 2000, Pope
Benedict XVI, then Cardinal Ratzinger, offered an insight into the silence of
the liturgy. “We respond, by singing and praying to the God who addresses us,
but the greater mystery, surpassing all words, summons us to silence. It must,
of course, be a silence with content, not just the absence of speech and
action. We should expect the liturgy to give us a positive stillness that will
restore us.”
Pope Benedict described the liturgical silence as a
“silence with content … a positive stillness.”
He meant that our silence in prayer is not to be an emptying meditation
alone. Instead, silence in prayer is an occasion to more deeply understand the
Mass itself.
Quotes:
"To pray is to talk to God, but about what? About Him, about
yourself; joys, sorrows, successes, and failures, noble ambitions, daily
worries, weaknesses! And acts of thanksgiving and petitions: and Love and
reparation. In a word: to get to know Him and to get to know yourself: to get
acquainted." (Saint Josemaria Escriva)
"Prayer gives us strength for great ideals, for keeping up our
faith, charity, purity, generosity; prayer gives us strength to rise up from
indifference and guilt, if we have had the misfortune to give in to temptation
and weakness. Prayer gives us light by which to see and to judge from God's
perspective and from eternity. That is why you must not give up on praying!" (Pope John
Paul II)
