Karl Rahner, one of the most significant theologians of the twentieth century, wrote a collection of prayers called Encounters with Silence. In a chapter called, “God of My Prayer,” Rahner asks God some hard questions. He asks God how he can continue to pray when all he experiences is God’s silence. He proposes some possible interpretations of God’s silence, asks if God’s silence is a sign that God is not listening, and then he writes,
Or do You really listen quite attentively, do You perhaps listen my whole life long, until I have told You everything, until I have spoken out my entire self to You? Do You remain so silent precisely because You are waiting until I am really finished, so that You can then speak Your word to me, the word of Your eternity? Are You silent so that You can one day bring to a close the lifelong monologue of a poor human being, burdened by the darkness of this world, by speaking the luminous word of eternal life, in which You will express Your very Self in the depths of my heart?
Encounters with Silence
Karl Rahner
Rahner expresses a common question that emerges in the lives of people who pray, how do we interpret the silence we experience in prayer? Is God silent because God doesn’t care? Is God angry or withdrawn because of our sins? Or is God silent because God is waiting in love, waiting to allow us the freedom of return, waiting to rejoice with us over each small step we make toward allowing ourselves to be fully known by God?
In chapter fifteen of Luke’s gospel, Jesus tells the parable of the prodigal son. The son begs his father for early payment of his inheritance, squanders the money, and only decides to return home when he hits rock bottom. He plans to ask his father to take him back as a servant, but while he is still far away his father runs down the road and greets him with a hug, a kiss, and a party. Because the father runs to greet his son while he is still far away, we know that the father has been waiting for the son’s return. Jesus tells this story to teach us who God is. Like the father in this story, God is waiting for us in love, gives us space so that we might respond in love, and is ever ready to rejoice and celebrate every small step we take in returning. God waits.
Parents discover through experience the essential link between waiting and love. The moment a baby is conceived, the waiting begins. Parents wait anxiously and pray for health as their baby grows in the womb. After their baby is born, parents wait for their baby to sleep through the night, take his first steps, say her first word. Parents wait through their children’s illnesses hoping for health to return. Parents wait through the struggles their children encounter, trying to help them, but recognizing that ultimately it is the child who must overcome the struggle. When children grow up and leave home, parents wait for their adult children to visit. Love waits.
Waiting is an aspect of love because waiting is linked to freedom, an essential component of love. Love is only love when it does not control. Love waits because love is free. Love offers, invites, welcomes, sacrifices, allows, reconciles, and forgives. Saint Paul’s great poem of love in I Corinthians 13 offers a deeply beautiful, poetic, description of love. In that poem Paul says,
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
I Corinthians 13:7
A person who bears, believes, hopes, and endures is not in control. When you love, you open your heart to the one that you love and everything that happens to the one you love, affects your heart as well. There is a deep vulnerability to love.
Parents also discover how much joy waiting can bring. When a child takes his first step, says her first word, discovers the joy of overcoming a struggle, or returns to health after an illness, the parent rejoices with her and for her. Somehow the joy of rejoicing with and for a child far surpasses any joy of individual accomplishment. Love is sacrificial but it is also the path to deep, abiding joy.
Jesus’s story about the prodigal son tells us how to interpret the silence we experience in prayer. Reflecting on silence in prayer, Rahner asks, “Or do You really listen quite attentively, do You perhaps listen my whole life long, until I have told You everything, until I have spoken out my entire self to You?” Through the parable of the lost son, Jesus tells us God’s answer to Rahner’s question, “Yes, I am listening quite attentively. I am listening your whole life long. I want to hear everything you say and everything you do not say. I am listening for your entire self. Through my listening, I express my very Self to you in the depths of your heart.” When we enter into the silent space of prayer, we enter into the silence of a waiting love, a silence that offers, invites, welcomes, sacrifices, allows, reconciles, and forgives. When we listen to this silence, we find joy.
