Faced with injustice, Albert Camus did not call to silence but to rebellion. “I rebel, therefore we exist”, he wrote in The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt. But also: “What is a rebel? A man who says no, but whose refusal does not imply a renunciation.” At first sight, it is rather difficult to say that he is wrong. . . . Are rebellion and fighting words more important than silence?
332. In his book, Un autre regard sur l’homme, Maurice Zundel writes:
Camus did not know that, behind this scandal and this misfortune of man abandoned to a universe capable of crushing him, there was an infinite, eternal love that never ceases to watch over us, await us, and call us! But without us, this love can do nothing because it is only love, and love is essentially freedom, freedom that addresses our freedom and can do nothing without it, without its consent. Camus was unable to resolve the problems of evil on this side of the veil, but he profoundly sensed it and expressed it magnificently.
In the presence of inhumane suffering, certainly there can be sound, just rebellion. But if it is a question of rebellion against God, consciously or unconsciously, the combat is useless, imaginary, and ridiculous. God is not responsible for the misery that men themselves have generated.
333. Rebellion is not necessarily the fairest attitude. I am even certain that it is never a lasting response. In a sense, rebellion is an empty noise because in fact it offers no response and no hope whatsoever.
The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt is the work of an atheist walled up in himself, without any horizon and, therefore, without any exit that could give him access to the Invisible One who directs his life.
334. I often wonder about the peace that may dwell in the heart of a man who rejects God. In the Confessions, Saint Augustine writes: “O, Lord. . . Thou hast made us for Thyself and our hearts are restless till they rest in Thee.” Without God, man is torn, anxious, worried, agitated, and he cannot arrive at interior rest. True life is not in rebellion but in silent adoration. Of course, we have no answer to the problem of evil; yet our task is to make it less intolerable and to offer a remedy without pride, discreetly, insofar as we can, as Mother Teresa of Calcutta and many other saints did.
335. Media society moves from sentimental rebellion to moral rebellion, like a desperate Sisyphus figure ceaselessly climbing the mountain. It demands its rebellion, its hatred of what it idiosyncratically defines as unjust and unfair, proud of its correct opinions, which are, however, the most pretentious ideas we could ever find. Cynical and shameless, it despicably revels in its dislikes.
336. Modern existence is a propped-up life built entirely on noise, artificiality, and the tragic rejection of God. From revolutions to conquests, from ideologies to political battles, from the frantic quest for equality to the obsessive cult of progress, silence is impossible. What is worse: transparent societies are sworn to an implacable hatred of silence, which they regard as a contemptible, backward defeat.
337. A man without silence is a stranger to God, exiled in a distant land that remains at the surface of the mystery of man and the world; but God is at the deepest part of man, in the silent regions of his being. In his book, Saint Grégoire le Grand: Culture et expériences chrétiennes [Saint Gregory the Great: Culture and Christian experiences], Bishop Claude Dagens explains well the anthropology of the author of the Moralia. Saint Gregory assigns an important place to the ideas of interiority and exteriority in his depiction of human destiny: “Man”, Bishop Dagens writes, “was destined to live within the divine world: this was his place of origin. By giving in to sin, he personally excluded himself from this privileged place. From now on, exteriority, to which he is consigned under the form of sin, blindness, and exile, prevents him from attaining the interiority he still remembers nostalgically, in other words, holiness, light, the joy of being in his true homeland.” Having surrendered to sin, he is like the sand of the sea: “The sand of the sea is forced without by the chafing of the waters, in that man too in transgressing, because he bore the billows of temptation unsteadily, was carried out of himself from within” (Moralia, 7, 2, 2 - PL 75, 768C).
How can one keep silence in the presence of sickness?
338. In Psalm 39, which is sometimes entitled “The Nothingness of Man before God”, I particularly like this brilliant speech:
I said, “I will guard my ways,
that I may not sin with my tongue;
I will bridle my mouth,
so long as the wicked are in my presence.”
I was mute and silent,
I held my peace to no avail;
my distress grew worse,
my heart became hot within me.
As I mused, the fire burned;
then I spoke with my tongue:
“Lord, let me know my end,
and what is the measure of my days;
let me know how fleeting my life is!
Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths,
and my lifetime is as nothing in your sight.
Surely every man stands as a mere breath!
Surely man goes about as a shadow!
Surely for nought are they in turmoil;
man heaps up, and knows not who will gather!
And now, Lord, for what do I wait?
My hope is in you.
Deliver me from all my transgressions.
Make me not the scorn of the fool!
I am silent, I do not open my mouth;
for it is you who have done it.
Remove your stroke from me;
I am spent by the blows of your hand.
When you chasten man
with rebukes for sin,
you consume like a moth what is dear to him;
surely every man is a mere breath!
Hear my prayer, O Lord,
and give ear to my cry;
hold not your peace at my tears!
For I am your passing guest,
a sojourner, like all my fathers.
Look away from me, that I may know gladness,
before I depart and be no more!”
In suffering, exasperation may get the better of us, but it is important to keep silent by remaining in the presence of God. Sickness, physical and psychological decline, human frailty are great mysteries. Bodily trials are an especially good time to look at the mystery of our short life that rolls inexorably onward toward death. It is necessary to be able to place the frailty of our existence before the power of God.
Sickness is an occasion for God to assess the truth of a man. A human being is a puny creature, but his Creator watches over him in his most difficult moments. Physical trials are wrongly considered bad turns of fate. Why do men not manage to understand that God never wills evil?
In sickness, man is naked before God. “More precisely, the spiritual combat is characterized by an astonishing paradox”, Bishop Claude Dagens writes in his book on Saint Gregory the Great.
The more man is tested in his flesh, the more his soul is sanctified, as though exterior trials were necessary in order to bring about interior progress. The holy man Job provides a living example—does he not?—of this paradox and this correspondence. Externally prostrated by fleshly wounds, he remains standing interiorly thanks to the rampart of his soul. This is, indeed, God’s instruction: in order to incite men to repentance and conversion, the Lord sends them trials.
339. Trials of the flesh are often indispensable in bringing about a spiritual and moral recovery. A man experiencing trials who trusts in the Divine Goodness shows a great faith in God. He exhibits a silent courage and loses himself in fervent prayer while awaiting the answer of the Almighty. I know that the force of prayer is stronger than thunder and gentler than the morning breeze. I know that the lights of prayer are capable of overturning the foundations of the universe, moving mountains, and raising my being and the world toward God so that we can be lost in him.
In the Bible, the noble figure of Job is very evocative. This holy man, who was rich and surrounded by many c
hildren, had an abundance of all the goods that a man can desire. But Job’s life abruptly upended. Armed bands stole his seven thousand sheep, his five hundred pairs of oxen, and his three thousand camels. A violent wind blew from the desert, and the house where his children were collapsed and killed them all. The Chaldeans divided into three bands, and his servants were put to the sword. Finally, he himself fell ill. Despite this series of misfortunes, Job remained unshakeable in his love for God. He vigorously proclaimed his innocence and professed a faith as solid as a centuries-old rock: “Oh, that my words were written! Oh, that they were inscribed in a book! Oh, that with an iron pen and lead they were graven in the rock for ever! For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then from my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another” (Job 19:23-27).
340. Sickness is a terrible, painful reality. It reveals the mystery of man, his frailty, as well as the interior energy that helps him to be ever more fully realized by overcoming the obstacles of life. If we successfully resist and show generosity and love, sickness can become a path to God, a path of maturity and interior structuring. Then sickness is an occasion to form in ourselves that perfect man, in the strength of maturity, who actualizes the fullness of Christ.
In silence, man can tell how limited earthly time is. In sickness it is possible for us to live almost perfectly attuned to God. The silent examination of conscience, at the heart of the pain, allows man to look at what he has made of his life and what remains for him to accomplish. Sickness is a sublime hope in the great silence of God. If man rebels against sickness, he falls little by little into a sterile despair, a blind alley, an aggressive, anxious refusal. Rebellion is not resistance, which is first and foremost a silent interior step.
341. Great patients are often men who demonstrate an unshakeable peace. They know that the steep decline of their body has brought their mind to an intimate face-to-face encounter with the divine realities. These individuals are often happy about their lot. Whereas average mortals imagine that it is a sad, serious life, these patients are perfectly serene. God already dwells in the silence of the look of a man who is about to pass away.
Yes, sickness is a sublime manifestation of God’s mysterious silence, a loving silence that is close to human suffering. Sickness makes man descend the various degrees of being. It reveals to him his own mystery while helping him enter into himself so as to encounter God there, who is found in the innermost depths of his soul.
The Evangelist John writes as follows:
Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent to him, saying, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” But when Jesus heard it he said, “This illness is not unto death; it is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by means of it.”
Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that he was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were but now seeking to stone you, and are you going there again?” Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any one walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if any one walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.” Thus he spoke, and then he said to them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awake him out of sleep.” The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.” Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he meant taking rest in sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead; and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” Thomas, called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”
Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary sat in the house. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. And even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” Jesus said to her, “You brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, he who is coming into the world.”
When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary, saying quietly, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him. When the Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary rise quickly and go out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there. Then Mary, when she came where Jesus was and saw him, fell at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled; and he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus wept. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind have kept this man from dying?”
Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb; it was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this on account of the people standing by, that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with bandages, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, believed in him; but some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered in council, and said, “What are we to do? For this man performs many signs. If we let him go on like this, every one will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation.” But one of them, Caiaphas, who was the high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all; you do not understand that it is expedient for you that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation should not perish.” He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus should die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad. So from that day on they took counsel about how to put him to death.
Jesus therefore no longer went about openly among the Jews, but went from there to the country near the wilderness, to a town called Ephraim; and there he stayed with the disciples. (Jn 11:1-54)
342. Often God pays more attention to the human body and venerates it more than man himself does. How can anyone live in peace and joy if his body is continually subjected to pressures of all sorts?
343. Sickness is intrinsically connected with eternity. The real men of God have no fear of death, because they are waiting for heaven. The example of Brother Théophane is admirable. A monk from the Abbey in Sept-Fons, carried off by a brain tumor at the age of twe
nty-eight, he wrote this moving message concerning his short life:
What is monastic life? How many have received this calling? How many, by the end of their life, have become true monks, friends of God? What graces, fidelity, perseverance, and courage will I need in order to achieve that? And that little additional something that makes a person God’s friend? For me, just beginning now, what will be my future? There is my vocation, the faith, the example of the older monks like Father Jérôme, and this insistent hope to attain it one day, like him. To be a monk, a true monk.
The more he suffered, the more he reached spiritual heights. Father Samuel, a Trappist monk from Sept-Fons, wrote an extraordinary book about his short life, his cruel illness, and his death, Qui cherchait Théophane [Whom did Théophane seek?], from which I like to quote these sentences:
Without Christian hope, he most certainly would have despaired or rebelled. And we would have, too. Everyone was tempted by the absurdity of the situation: sickness mowing down such a young life that promised to be so full! We tried to turn our backs on resignation. Brother Théophane learned from the sickness to be able to disregard the appearances of happiness and to acquiesce in apparent failures. If he had been cured, this attitude would have lit up his whole life. In that regard his testimony is invaluable for other sick people who want to be cured and for us, too. We now know that happiness comes at this price. I am talking about a sturdy happiness that a passing incident does not ruin, however serious it may be. Brother Théophane’s illness, therefore, made him a sturdier man and cast him, cast us all, upon God’s heart. What was Brother Théophane looking for, then? Brother Théophane asked nothing of anyone, not even of God, not even that they love him; he wanted to be happy.
Father Samuel ends his book with this quotation from Genesis: “Judah is a lion’s whelp; from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He stooped down, he lurked as a lion, and as a lioness, who dares rouse him up?” (Gen 49:9).
The Power of Silence Page 20