Justin Appel

Dear Friends,

In the Kaph section of Psalm 119, the psalmist speaks of God's absence or silence. Read the section here.

Most of us have probably sensed this silence at periods in our own lives, and it can feel a bit like abandonment or judgement.
Perhaps this is why the psalmists so often speaks to this issue, often asking God to break the silence -- a silence that is indicative of death.

The lives of various saints were characterized by this silence or absence. Perhaps we have all heard or read about Mother Teresa's experience of God's absence, which lasted for some fifty years of her life! Another modern example, St. Silouan, a saint who experienced the presence of God's Spirit, also felt God's absence for decades of his life as a monk on Mt. Athos.

In a book about Arvo Pärt's music, Peter Bouteneff discusses this concept of silence and the example of St. Silouan, but he highlights two additional voices, one recent and another ancient:

St. Silouan's disciple, Sophrony, taught that this 'God-forsakenness' is not actual absence. Indeed, God cannot be absent from his creation nor from us, his beloved creatures. Instead, it occurs when God takes away our ability to discern his Grace. This sense of God's departure may, in fact, be God's way of reviving in us an awarenesses of his presence.

St. John Climacus similarly drew the illustration of a baby who's father must travel on business. When the father returns home, the child will be filled with joy and sadness -- 'joy at seeing the one it loves, sadness at the fact of being deprived so long of that same love.' Similarly, a mother can hide from her baby, and will feel delight to see 'how sadly the child goes about looking for her and stirs up the flame of love for her'.

(Peter Bouteneff, Arvo Pärt: Out of Silence, and eds. Colm Luibheid and Norman Russell, trans., John Climacus: The Ladder of Divine Ascent, Classics of Western Spirituality.)

Of course, responding positively to God's absence is difficult -- and this is one of the reasons why we need to know the saints. They teach us how to live so that we are ready to respond to the difficulties of life, its pain, suffering and deprivations, by turning to God, and by looking for his mercy.

God is present to us. He will never leave us nor forsake us!

Lord, have mercy!

Yours in Christ,
Justin