Silent Hospitality

There is never absolute silence at Manna House. Before the doors open at 8am, even before the other volunteers arrive around 7:45am, the house is never completely silent. There is the rumbling of passing traffic on Jefferson Avenue. There is the comforting sound of coffee percolating and the dryers finishing off loads of laundry from the previous day.  Early arriving guests congregate on the front porch, and sometimes those voices are loud enough for me to hear inside. When the windows are open in the summer, I can hear the songs of the birds who make their way through the yard.

The house is not silent, but it does seem quiet. The contrast between the hubbub of hospitality that is to come, and the emptiness of the house, makes possible a peaceful quiet. And in that quiet, I seek to pray.

I have a routine. I read about the “Saint of the Day” in Daniel Ellsberg’s book, “All Saints: Daily Reflections on Saints, Prophets, and Witnesses for Our Time.” Then I pray the psalms from the Liturgy of the Hours. 

Sometimes I recall that many years ago as a Benedictine monk my day would start with Morning Prayer at 7a.m. Here I am at roughly the same time still praying the psalms. I feel a connection with the monks at St. John’s Abbey, knowing they are in the abbey church praying the psalms too. I am thankful for this habit of prayer they formed me.

The quiet time for prayer makes possible the hospitality I seek to offer later in the morning. This prayer is God’s time of hospitality. In the quiet, I have a better chance of hearing and accepting God’s welcome. In this quiet, I listen, not for any particular word, not for any particular insight, but sit in quiet expectation for God’s loving presence.

Maybe this is why I love the hymn “Silent Night” so much. It recognizes the presence of God in the quiet, “Silent night, holy night, All is calm, all is bright.” The Word becomes flesh in the midst of silence so deep that shepherds can hear angels in the night air. “Alleluia” can be heard when the pretentious clamor of our daily hustle and bustle subsides.

In the morning quiet of Manna House, I find a connection with Jesus who was born in the silence. I remember that in his life he also sought silence, and that silence anchored his work. In silence he, too, could receive God’s hospitality. Mark’s Gospel preserves short stories of Jesus seeking silence. “When he had taken leave of them, he went off to the mountain to pray” (Mark 6:46), and “very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed” (Mark 1:35).

Like Jesus, in these quiet times I find a sacred silence. Silence helps me to set aside all those thoughts and desires that clamor for my attention, that assert their importance, and mine. In silence I can attend to that “the God-sized hole” in my heart. Blaise Pascal wrote of the craving each of us tries to fill in vain with everything around us. I seek to prop myself up with possessions and with identities that inflate my ego. But “none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God” (Pensees VII, 425).

Silence quiets those distractions, so I can become receptive to God’s graciousness. Centered in the silent hospitality of God’s gracious presence, and not in my loud desires to control others or magnify my powers, I can welcome others as they are—God’s own people made in God’s image. In silence, God’s love fills my heart, so I can love others as God loves me. God’s silent hospitality nourishes my soul, so I can welcome others with hospitality, seeing in them the very presence of God.