By Sister John Marion
School Sisters of Christ the King
“What was it like?” It was after first Communion, and I had gathered my class on the floor and looked into their beaming faces as I asked the question, “What was it like to have Jesus inside you?”
Hands shot up.
“I felt like I was filled with light,” one girl responded.
“I felt purer,” another boy chimed in.
“It was like I could float, and I knew God loves me,” another girl added.
Then, with prompting from the Holy Spirit, I asked, “Did anyone feel nothing when you received your first Communion?” Many students raised their hands, hesitantly at first, perhaps afraid that this indicated that something was wrong with them. I continued, “If it was really Jesus whom you received, why do you think that He allowed some of us to feel something and others to feel nothing?”
Silence settled over everyone. Then a boy smiled and raised his hand.
“When you have a lot of feelings, you have a lot of words, and you’ll probably want to talk about it. But if you don’t have feelings, then it’s easier to listen.”
Stunned, I called on the next boy.
“Maybe God thinks you’re strong enough to just get Him and not feel Him, you know.”
“Yeah,” said one of the girls, “Besides, it’s easier to praise Him when you don’t feel anything.”
“Maybe,” a boy pondered, “what He’s giving you is too big for you to feel. Kind of like when something is too big to see, like the sky!”
“Well we can’t see it; it’s invisible,” added another boy, “but that makes it even better.”
“Plus, you can make up feelings, but you can’t make up Him. So He wants you to know that you didn’t make this up.”
“It’s like confession. It’s true that all your sins are tooken (sic.) away, but it might not feel true. But it is true.”
I was astonished to receive such deep spiritual wisdom from 8-year-old children. Perhaps more striking than their words were their faces, full of joy and confidence as they explained the heart of Jesus to me. I should not have been surprised that these children intuited better than I did why Jesus sometimes chooses to act in silent and hidden ways.
I do not have the innocence or the simplicity of a child, so I sometimes perceive dryness or Jesus’ silence in prayer as His absence. There are times when I have fallen into the trap of thinking that His silence is my fault or the result of “not praying well.” But the children were showing me a new way.
They were undisturbed by Jesus’ silence because they knew Him. He is the Good Shepherd who gives His sheep everything they need. He is the true Vine who shares His life with His branches. He is the Living Water who fills those who thirst. He is the Bread from Heaven who lowers Himself to become our food to satiate our hunger. He is not the kind of Person to withdraw from those He loves. As the prayers for the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick state, “Our weakness lays claim to Your strength.” He cannot help but give Himself to us. No matter what they felt, the children knew that Communion could not be anything but Jesus’ self-gift.
For these children, His silence connected rather than separated them. In their innocence, they received His silence as presence rather than absence. Father Antonio Lopez once defined “presence” as “to be given to the other, in a certain sense to belong to the other” (“Gift and the Unity of Being”). We can think of an elderly couple, sitting together on the front porch, or of a pregnant mother folding laundry but constantly aware of the new life inside her. Their silence is a rich attentiveness to the other, a readiness to receive the other. This is Jesus’ constant stance toward us—attentive, relational, and personal. Even when we do not perceive Him, He is consistently “being given” to us, “belonging” to us.
I have found that the children’s words are true. Jesus often does His best work under cover of dryness. He really does give gifts that are too great for us to comprehend, that unfold slowly, and therefore are barely perceptible to us. The dryness can turn our gaze away from the gift and onto Him. Sometimes, after a period of dryness in prayer, I am surprised to discover a glimpse of what He has been doing. There are healings that only manifest themselves when, much later, I find freedom and rest where before there had only been pain and bondage.
Jesus, give us the simplicity of a child who waits in expectant faith for You whenever You act in silence.
