Precisely one year ago in the Italian town of Cremona, there was an imposed silence by order of the local government for eight hours a day, six days of the week for five straight weeks. The purpose was to allow the pristine recording by highly technical equipment of sounds played on the 1700 Antonio Stradivari \u201cStauffer\u201d cello, the 1727 Antonio Stradivari \u201cVesuvius\u201d violin, a 1615 \u201cStauffer\u201d viola by Girolamo Amati, and the 1734 \u201cPrince Doria\u201d violin by Guarneri del Ges\u00f9. Cremona\u2019s most famous luthier, of course, was Stradivari, and no one knows how many centuries from now such instruments as the Stradivarius violins can survive.<\/p>\n
It is harder to make silence than noise. Because of modern cacophony, especially in what passes for music in the form of amplified \u201crock\u201d sounds, young people are growing increasingly deaf. In urban areas, silence is so uncommon that one becomes suspicious of silence, rather like the dog that did not bark in Arthur Conan Doyle\u2019s \u201cSilver Blaze\u201d detective story. Sherlock Holmes said that it was Dr. Watson\u2019s \u201cgreat gift for silence\u201d that made him so useful.<\/p>\n
Satan and his evil spirits are noisy. Jesus told an evil spirit to be silent (Mark 1:25). The Greek \u03a6\u03b9\u03bc\u03ce\u03b8\u03b7\u03c4\u03b9 (Phim\u014dth\u0113ti<\/em>)\u00a0simply means \u201cShut up!\u201d Our Lord always was precise. So should we be, in order to hear God. \u201cBe still and know that I am God\u201d (Psalm 46:10).<\/p>\n The surrealist poet Dame Edith Sitwell said, \u201cMy personal hobbies are reading, listening to music, and silence.\u201d She might have benefitted arts and letters had she been silent more often. But, after all, she eventually made her Profession of Faith at the Farm Street Church in London with Evelyn Waugh as her sponsor. Neither was famous for reticence, but they did profit from moments of quietude. Those who do not think deeply will not understand how painful it is to those who have powers of concentration, to be interrupted by frivolous chatter.<\/p>\n Saint Anthony helped to change the world by isolating himself in a desert. This is why retreats in one form or another are crucial, for a retreat is actually a frontal attack on the noisy Anti-Christ. The pope himself recently said that folks should put down their iPhones and listen to silence, which has a sound of its own. When Barnabas and Paul spoke at the Council in Jerusalem, \u201cAll the people kept silent . . .\u201d (Acts 15:12). We can be thankful that they did not have cell phones.<\/p>\n God will not have to shout at us if we do not \u201charden our hearts\u201d (Hebrews 3:15). Instead, as with Elijah, \u201c. . . the\u00a0Lord\u00a0wasnot in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake,\u00a0but\u00a0the\u00a0Lordwas\u00a0not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire,\u00a0butthe\u00a0Lord\u00a0was\u00a0not in the fire; and after the fire a still, small voice\u201d (1 Kings 19:11-13).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Fr. George William Rutler, 1.25.20<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Precisely one year ago in the Italian town of Cremona, there was an imposed silence by order of the local government for eight hours a day, six days of the week for five straight weeks. The purpose was to allow the pristine recording by highly technical equipment of sounds played on the 1700 Antonio Stradivari …<\/span> Read More →<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15262"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15263,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15262\/revisions\/15263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}