Fr Luke Macnamara OSB
Elijah goes to meet God at the mountain of Horeb. He does not meet God in the wind, earthquake or fire, but hears a voice in the silence. While God’s power is manifest in wind, earthquake, and fire, God’s very own presence is in a still voice of silence. This seems puzzling. How can one hear silence, not to mention a fine or still silence? Yet this sheer silence has a voice, and the key characteristic of a voice is that it speaks. God is closest not through great works of power, which we can observe in the wonders of his creation, but in the most gentle manner possible, a whisper, in which he speaks to us. This reveals
something of how God relates to us.
God’s presence requires careful listening. The voice from the still silence cannot be heard in a noisy or busy environment. Elijah travelled 40 days to get to Horeb, and waited alone until after the wind, earthquake, and fire passed by, until he heard the voice of silence. Jesus at the beginning of the Gospel story sends away his disciples and afterwards the crowds, before climbing a mountain so that he can be alone to pray to the Father. It is striking that the Gospel text twice refers to Jesus being alone by himself while he prayed. Earlier in the
Sermon on the Mount, Jesus advises disciples: “go into your inner room, close the door and there pray to the your Father in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” (Matt 6:6) What Jesus teaches his disciples to do, he now models for us by going up the mountain. Private personal prayer is a central pillar of a disciple’s relationship with God.
Prayer is not confined in secret to our inner rooms. There are very public moments where we are motivated to pray, when we like Peter, find ourselves sinking. There may be many causes, loss of health, loss of relationship, loss of personal standing or reputation, loss of job or money. In such situations we may make the prayer of Peter to Jesus our own – “Lord save me.” We do this together in a very public way at the beginning of every Mass with the invocation, “Lord have mercy.” Peter makes his prayer in doubt but through the encounter with Jesus this doubting prayer ends in salvation and worship. So we may feel that our prayer of the “Lord have mercy” has been half hearted, but through the encounter with Jesus through word and sacrament, it too ends in our salvation and our worship.