Cardinal Sarah: “We never have silence in our lives, from the beginning to the last hours of the day. We listen to rumors, news, radio, the telephone. We need silence, anyway, to meet God and to have a very human life. Man needs to be silent.”
At a presentation for his new book on Wednesday, Cardinal Robert Sarah said that not only does the Church need silence, but the act of being in silence and of listening to God is efficient, in its own way.
“We have seen we must talk, we must do something, we must act; but silence is an act of adoration, it is an act of goodness, so it’s not about doing something that is efficient,” said Cardinal Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.
“Silence is (itself) very, very efficient. It gives you the opportunity to see yourself, to listen to yourself, to listen to God.”
Cardinal Sarah said that he wrote The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise because “we need silence, not only regarding the liturgy, but even to read a book, to listen to music.”
“To have rest, you need silence,” he continued, “and silence helps one to see inside oneself.”
Photo credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNA