A Time to Keep Silence

As I drove back to St. John Paul II Seminary from winter break, I had an opportunity to reflect on my first semester of college as a seminarian. There was so much to be grateful for: I had made many friends, had a great roommate from West Virginia, and grown exponentially in my prayer life and my devotion to our Blessed Mother. With only a few months of formation, I could already see in myself the virtues the Lord was cultivating and the areas he was preparing for growth. But I still had lingering doubts on what I was doing with my life. Was this what our Lord really wanted me to do? Was I coming to seminary out of some sort of pride? Can I really live my life without a wife and children? With all these questions and doubts I began to lose the peace that I had since the beginning of the semester. All of this and more were bouncing around in my head as I arrived at the location of our five-day retreat.  

As I entered silence, I was definitely excited, but also nervous. Being in silence for five days can be daunting! But my peace soon returned. It was a gift to immerse myself in the silence, spending time with Our Lady, St. Joseph, and the Christ Child, truly resting and growing closer to God. If I wrote about all my experiences from the retreat, this article would probably be the size of a book! It was a great retreat, and it changed me for the better. While Christ didn’t reveal all the answers to my questions, He gave me strength and peace to begin this new semester. As the retreat ended, however, I realized that I wanted to stay in this silence, that I did not want to enter back into the world! I greeted my brothers with great joy, but there was a hint of sadness, knowing I had returned to the world of noise, hustle, and bustle. 

The day after the retreat the whole seminary went on an excursion to St. Mary’s County, Maryland. We made a massive bonfire, played sports, and camped out in a church gym. Later that evening, I went into the church to pray and take a quick break from all the noise that comes with 48 guys having fun. I realized in prayer that though the retreat was over, I could still retain that interior silence that I longed for, even in a world of noise. On the outside, there could be all kinds of distractions: physical noise, deadlines for papers, formation meetings and so much more! But on the inside, I could keep the silence in my heart that I loved so much. And I knew at once how I would do that: spending time with Christ, Our Lady, St. Joseph, and all the saints — things I did on retreat. Of course, I have other duties that prevent me from spending all day in prayer and silence, but if I spend time with Christ in silent prayer every day, I can unite all my work to Him, grow closer to His Sacred Heart, and bring others closer to Him too. 

It can be hard to keep interior silence when everything around you is clamoring for your attention: mothers with their little children, fathers with their jobs, priests with their parish, college kids with looming deadlines for papers they haven’t started on. The list goes on. Everyone has things that, if not well ordered, can draw us away from the loving arms of Christ and His Mother. But if we realize that our relationship with Christ is the most real thing in the world, and that all these other things will be taken care of when we seek first His kingdom and His grace. We can keep a wonderful peace: a peace that all the noise in the world cannot destroy. When we die and stand in front of Christ at our particular judgment, the only thing that will matter is our relationship with Him and the actions we made because of that relationship. When we feel discouraged from all the noise in the world, we must remember that we can retain an interior silence. We need only to abide in Christ and walk with Mary along the path of life in this noisy world.

Mr. McHugh is a College I seminarian for the Diocese of Richmond.