the silence of lovers

An old man was seen by the parish priest everyday for many years in the church. He would sit down and remain motionless for hours on end. So one day the priest approached the old man and asked what God talked to him about.
And the old man said, “God doesn’t talk. He just listens.”
Well, then what do you talk to him about? asked the parish priest.
And the old man said, “I don’t talk either. I just listen.


Lovers don’t really talk much. Most often they do not listen. But they are there, probably holding hands, probably looking at the sunset together. But no words are exchanged. Only silence. This is also true in prayer, in our relationship with God.
It is said that there are several stages of prayer:
First stage, I talk, God listens.
Second stage, God talks, I listen.
Third stage, neither of us talk. Silence, the language of lovers and real friends.
In the Old Testament this particular stage of prayer is attributed to Moses when it said that only Moses can go face to face with God and when they do, it is as intimate friends. Probably a little talk but mostly silence – the language of intimate friends.
Today I am assigned to reflect with you on the theme – Contemplation – the wellspring of love. Actually I would rather believe in the reverse - Love – the wellspring of contemplation. Contemplation comes from love. When a person is in love he is at home with silence for as long as he or she is with the lover. And it is this profound experience of love that makes one a contemplative.
Instead of engaging myself in a discussion let us be more practical.
The Jews has a compilation of discussion regarding Jewish law which they call the Talmud. In the Talmud one can find a list of what it calls improper prayer – prayers which you should not pray for.
One prohibition goes this way. You cannot pray to God to change the past. The Talmud gives an example. A pregnant woman should not pray, “Lord grant that our child will be a boy.” You cannot pray like that. Why? Because the sex of the child was determined already when it was conceived. Asking God to change the sex of the child at that stage in your pregnancy is improper because you are asking God to change the past.
Another example it gives is when a man sees a fire truck running with sirens blazing. He should not pray, “Please God don’t let the fire be in my house.” One could not pray that. Why? Because it is not only wrong to pray that some else’s house gets burned instead of yours, but it is also futile. Whatever house is burning is already burning. So you cannot ask God to change that – too late.
Another prayer which you should not pray for is to force God to do a miracle to change the laws of nature for our benefit. If a typhoon is heading our way please don’t pray that it will change course and go to Capiz instead, or thank God it fell on Capiz!
Another prayer which you could not pray for, are prayers meant to do someone else harm. You cannot pray like that shopkeeper who had a rival across the street. When the angel appeared to him the angel said that in order to teach him a lesson regarding his bad prayers for the other, God will grant him all the prayers he asked but God will give the rival twice as much. So if he ask for wealth, God will give the rival double of what he asked. If he ask for a long and healthy life, his rival will get a longer and healthier life. So what would you ask God? the angel asked. The man thought long and hard and finally asked, “Lord make me blind in one eye.” He went blind in one eye and his rival became blind in two eyes.
This is a story that illustrates that prayers meant to harm another is not a proper prayer.
Finally there is one other prayer you could not utter, another improper prayer. We cannot ask God in prayer for something which is within our power to do. We cannot ask him to do something for us that we can very well do ourselves. You cannot ask God to pass the exams when you can pass it by yourself by studying harder. You cannot ask God to take away your prejudice when you know you have the capacity to see goodness in other people if only you would look harder and deeper. You cannot pray to God to save your marriage when you very well know that it is within your power, if you are humble enough, to save your marriage. You cannot ask God to end hunger when you have the capacity to end it by starting right there at your doorstep. In other words you cannot ask God to do something which you can do. Or should we say, you cannot pray out of a sense of irresponsibility, asking God to do the work for you.
Why am I narrating this? Because real prayer, a prayer between lovers, a prayer in silence, or should I say contemplation cannot pray like these. When one does real prayer he becomes saturated in love, he is borne aloft. But when he emerges from prayer the love he experienced impels him to be completely engaged in helping those he suffer. Only persons who have really prayed, who have really celebrated the Eucharist with all their hearts, only they maybe able to take upon themselves the needs of others and make them his own concern. Only they who have really prayed their novenas well, only they who have been so touched by the love of the divine can bring out that love into action. Our prayer leads to a deeper concern, our prayer leads to an immediate response to action in a situation of need, our prayer impels us to do what we can instead of merely commending to God what we can very well do for each other. This is contemplation – the result of contemplation because contemplation is a saturation in the love, a silence which savors love – a silence that cannot help but be broken when love needs to act.
This is what I mean when I say the reverse of the theme may be truer – that love becomes the wellspring of contemplation.