The Silence That Renews All Things

The true Master speaks through the longing that emerges from silence, and his word takes root in the mystery of God.
— Pigi Banna
The Silence That Renews All Things
Pigi Banna

Pigi Banna - Holy Saturday is the day when believers share the questions of non-believers. But God's silence is not absence—it is the moment when the Master works most deeply.

Holy Saturday is the day when God seems to have gone quiet—and because of that, it is also the day when believers share the questions of non-believers: “If God exists, why does He not make His power felt? Why is God silent precisely when life puts us to the test?”

The Word of God appears to have been silenced. The time of the anguished cry from the cross, of the earthquake, and of the torn veil of the temple has passed. Love was given voice, briefly, through the disciples’ acts of charity: preparing the body, carefully wrapping it in linen, rolling the stone. But even that is over. On the Saturday following Jesus’ death, all is still. It is the hour of God’s silence, of the faithful’s silence—and of the questions of those who do not believe.

Yet it is precisely in silence that the true character of the Master is revealed. As St. Augustine observes, the master knows when to hold his tongue, because silence is the moment when the disciple turns over in his heart the words he has heard and the gestures he has witnessed. God, as the true Master, has always allowed a time of silence—precisely after He has suddenly won a person’s heart. He fills it with silence and withdraws, because—as Julián Carrón recently noted—He does not wish to overpower the freedom of consent through the sheer force of immediate wonder.

God’s silence, then, is that time when a person is almost compelled to turn inward—unable to take refuge in worn-out rituals and half-baked certainties—and ask: Where do I start again? What is truly missing? Where do I go to find it? From memory, one word will surface among the many that have been heard—the true word, because it is the only one that still sets the heart ablaze with longing.

“There was no light or guide, / except that which burned within my heart. / This led me / more surely than the light at noon.”

—St. John of the Cross

It was from the depths of this silence that Mary Magdalene decided—without telling anyone, defying everything and everyone—that the next day she would go to the tomb to seek the Love of her life.

The true Master, the one who gives life, speaks through the longing that emerges from silence; and his word takes root in the mystery of God. In the first days of separation from a loved one, precisely in those silent moments, one may find oneself uncomfortably arrested by the chirping of birds in the cool of early morning, or by the enchanting play of colors at sunset. It is hard to admit: no matter how much we want to shut everything out in the dullness of our own pain, reality keeps unfolding before our eyes, and its beauty is like a wound that—even in silence—shakes us from nowhere and speaks to us of the one we miss.

This, too, is the work of the Master who seems to be silent, yet in that silence reaffirms His “yes” to life, leaving here and there the signs of His presence. The Father, after the death of the Son, could have brought the entire history of this world to a close with His final judgment. Instead, He chooses to continue saying His “yes” to life. He does not annul everything; in silence, He continues to make all things new. As J. Daniélou writes: “After Christ’s death, it seems that the whole world… is enveloped in a kind of silence, similar to that which preceded the creation of the world. From the world returned to nothingness, the new creation will arise.”

The Father withholds the word of judgment and makes all things beautiful again, because He upholds the Son’s initiative. He too—silently, concretely—repeats His “yes” to that humanity He made His own from the moment of the Incarnation; a humanity He learned to love through every day of the Son’s life, even to the point of dying for it. And while waiting to reclaim His body from the tomb, He does not remain idle. He descends into the underworld and embraces the lives of all the righteous whom death held captive, so that no one may be lost. As the Byzantine liturgy of Holy Saturday puts it: “Lover of mankind, the substance of my being in Adam was not foreign to you, and you, buried, renew me who am corrupt.”

In the apparent silence of Holy Saturday, Christ decides that He does not want the Resurrection only for Himself, but for every person who is waiting for Him in order to live. In the mysterious space between Himself and His body, He wants to embrace the humanity of those who—like Mary Magdalene—are at this moment dying of longing for Him.

That space between Christ and His body is inhabited by an even more silent Presence: the Spirit, who at once carries God’s passion into the flesh of our humanity, and is capable of hearing the truth that stirs in the silence of every heart.

It is the Spirit who, in the silence, carries the fire of Christ’s desire and at the same time kindles Mary Magdalene’s longing. The desire, fear, pain, and pleasure that for the ancient sages were merely frailties of the soul become, for the Spirit of the Father, the ground in which the proclamation of the Resurrection bursts forth. On that ground, in the silence, the Spirit generates the incandescent contact between our humanity and the Presence of the Risen Christ. It is the experience of the burning heart—which until the end of the world will remain the ultimate criterion for recognizing the Presence of the living and present Christ.

While everything seems silent, beneath the snow of this day the earth begins to tremble with new life. The silence will be broken by the great proclamation that will radiate throughout history until the last day: “He is risen.” But this proclamation—like every great word of love—will be all the more true the deeper its roots sink into silence. The silence of the Master who gives life, repeats His “yes,” and goes to the roots of the heart. And the silence of the disciple who finds, at the depths of himself and all around him, not his own fragility, but the Presence of the Master’s Spirit.

On this day we approach our atheist friends with a simple invitation: “We are not afraid. Do not be afraid of your questions. Come—let us listen together to the silence of God.” There will be no confusion when, from the depths, that voice resounds: a voice that knows how to listen, and how to give new life to what for everyone else would be a sign of weakness and death. This is the Resurrection of Christ—a new life that gives voice to every human silence.

Pierluigi Banna

Pierluigi Banna, born in 1984, is an Italian Catholic theologian and clergyman. He holds a PhD in Systematic Theology and History, teaching at the Faculty of Theology of Northern Italy and Catholic University in Milan. Banna's research focuses on patristics and early Christianity's relationship with ancient philosophy. He actively contributes to academic discourse, exploring faith, reason, and contemporary cultural issues.

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