Just be.
These are the words I heard Jesus speak so clearly to my heart while praying in the chapel after a daily Mass one snowy, winter evening.
Why are you always planning? If it’s not your future, it’s your week’s workouts, meals, fun activities with friends, what you’re going to do the next day. You’re with Me right now, so be WITH Me.
Perhaps it was a mix of my own conscience and Jesus speaking to my heart, but these words were right. I’m often distracted with my thoughts—preoccupied with things other than those in front of me. Whether I’m hanging out with friends, family, or Jesus, the temptation to be distracted with planning or thinking about what’s next is always there.
As much as I try, living in the present is not easy for me—even when the present is wonderful and life-giving. I think it has to do with the desire in our human hearts for more. We long for complete fulfillment—which we can only get in Heaven—and somehow looking to the future or busying our lives creates a sense of pursuit and control.
“If I have a plan or agenda to stick to, I’m going in the right direction so I’ll get to where I want to go eventually!” At least, that’s what my subconscious tells me.
It’s ironic because we don’t find Christ in the noise, but the silence. Ultimate fulfillment and true eternal joy is being so still in the presence of God, that all you can do is worship. If we want to pursue heaven on earth, we must enter into this silence. But first, we have to be. And become really good at just being.
In his book, The Power of Silence, Cardinal Robert Sarah says,
“Unless silence dwells in man, and unless solitude is a state in which he allows himself to be shaped, the creature is deprived of God” (pg. 23).
St. John Paul II emphasizes this point in his apostolic letter, Novo millennio ineunte,
“Ours is a time of continual movement which often leads to restlessness, with the risk of ‘doing for the sake of doing’. We must resist this temptation by trying ‘to be’ before trying ‘to do’.”
In entering into silence—in ‘being’ rather than constantly ‘doing’—we prepare our hearts for Heaven, which is eternal silence. Cardinal Sarah explains this in his writing when he says,
“The silence of eternity is the consequence of God’s infinite love. In heaven, we will be with Jesus, totally possessed by God and under the influence of the Holy Spirit. Man will no longer be capable of saying a single word. Prayer itself will have become impossible. It will be contemplation, a look of love and adoration…The liturgy of eternity is silent; souls have nothing else to do but to join the choir of angels” (Power of Silence, pgs. 98-99).
Here on earth, we find this ultimate silence in the Eucharist—the sacrifice of the Mass. In spending time with Christ’s Presence, we can taste a glimmer of the supreme silence of Heaven. Adoring and sitting with Christ in the Blessed Sacrament gives us a little drop of this eternal, silent love (cf. p. 99).
If the goal of this life is to prepare our hearts for Heaven, shouldn’t we chase any chance to enter into the silence of Heaven? While we are called to go out and ‘do’ things for the Lord, we are first called to ‘be.’
This Lenten season is the perfect time to re-evaluate our priorities and where we are spending our time. Are we prioritizing this silence in our lives? If not, we risk depriving ourselves of God. This silent Love of Heaven exists in each Tabernacle on earth in the Real Presence of the Eucharist. Go sit with Christ. JUST BE with Him. Let His silent Love fill every void and fulfill what you so desperately pursue through action. After all, that’s what Heaven is.
From the depths of my soul,
