Monday Musing

The other day I was reading my friend Michelle Francl-Donnay’s blog, Quantum Theology. This particular post was what was in her weekly column at the Catholic Standard and Times, which is the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. She was writing about silence.

Silence is something many of us have so little of in our lives, yet it is so very necessary. I am painfully aware of how a lack of silence in my own life is a tremendous challenge, one that I am ready to confront more directly.

Michelle’s column, An Active Silence, brings up different kind of silence however, and one that I think of as the shared silence of worship and liturgy. The silence in liturgy is often found in we might experience as awkward pauses – or even as potential disasters. Once I was the second lector at mass and I was waiting for the cantor to return to the choir before I got up to make my way to the ambo. The very kind and well-intentioned person next to me poked me hard, just as the cantor turned to walk away from the ambo and in a panicked just-a-bit-too-loud-whisper said, “”Don’t you have to go up there and read?!”  It was a reminder of how uncomfortable that pause can be. I was anxious too, but in a different way.

In what may seem to be an unrelated link,  I bring up ABC News’ Person of the Week from last week, Alan Alda. In his retirement from acting, Alda is doing some interesting things. If you watch the video, you will hear him talk about intimacy and contact. In that moment we forget about what worries and frightens us, and we just are. That is what the pause calls us to, and that is potentially why it is so challenging.

The Person of the Week piece may not seem to be related to silence, but I think that it is, because it is about awkward contact, rich connection, wonder, awe and ultimately abut God, as I see it.

All these things which lead us into the seemingly awkward pause, is perhaps the place we go into the deepest intimacy with God.

(I can’t seem to embed the video into the post, but you can see it by visiting the link above.)

Monday Bonus Post – A Short Reflection on the O Antiphons by Michele Francl-Donnay

Michelle Francl-Donnay is a friend that I have only met through blogs and Facebook. She authors a beautiful blog entitled Quantum Theology. Michelle is a chemistry professor, a cantor at her Catholic parish and the author of a regular column published in the Catholic Standard of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. She is a prolific writer actually and you might catch her work in any number of places.

Michelle podcasts from time to time and I find her voice so soothing and inviting. Today I was thrilled to discover that she had a short podcast up about the O Antiphons. Since we are spending time with them ourselves this week, I thought I would share her words here. I tried to embed the player, but it would not work, so just click here to go to the podcast..