“No news from God†reads the catching title of a movie. I am not interested in the movie; instead I am intrigued by its title, which I find dramatic and somehow irreverent, particularly during these days of Advent and Christmas season. That is why I paraphrase it for my 2011 Christmas message.
No news from God!! How distressing if it were true! For distressing indeed is having no news when these are of life and death. And the news from God are of such calibre. The strange thing, however, is the fact that many people around us are neither distressed, nor worried, and nor even bothered about living “without news from God.†Why? Just because they do not see their importance and also, in many instances, because they neither expect them. Sad and tragic, but this is how we are.
And what about us, Dominicans, missionaries, members of Our Lady of the Rosary Province? Do we have news from God? Of course we have. And good news indeed. We have actually accepted a saving message with the commitment even to spread it: the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is our firm belief that God has been incarnated in Jesus of Nazareth and that through him, His Son, has spoken and saved us. This is good news of Love and Life. That is why there is rejoicing in our hearts and we, deeply grateful, feel the urgency to bring the news to others.
But how to explain the awesome “silence†of God dealt with by Spiritual Theology; a silence that impels people to question God and even leads us sometimes to lose pleasure in prayer?… Doctors of the Church know how to answer: “It is not so much silence on the part of God,†they say, “as rather lack of willingness to listen to Him on ours’.†“For in giving us, as He did, His Son, which is His Word – and He has no other – He spoke to us all together, once and for all, in this single Word, and He has no occasion to speak further.†(St John of the Cross)
Brothers, I greet you this Christmas season with News from God. News that in this time in history He conveys through his Son, his Word made flesh. Let us open then our ears and listen attentively. Let us open also our heart: because messages of Love are heard with it. And if, in spite of all, we still undergo through moments of silence from God… know that it is because “there is no occasion for Him to speak furtherâ€; because He has told us already everything.
Merry Christmas and a Blessed Year 2012!
Fr. Javier