In tabernacles around the world, the King of the Universe sits in silence as the imperial purple is draped over Him. In one little island diocese, the silence is deafening - the silence of vacant choir stalls, of a church where the only prayers are those uttered in the recesses of the hearts of the faithful, of a sanctuary, empty, save for the King. That great gate joining Heaven and Earth, through which He had passed, day after day for decades without fail, is sealed shut. The organ lies dormant. The hymnals are unused. The songs that echoed through these halls resound no longer. Yet in silence, the King is exalted.
In silence, He went into the desert, before He could begin His mission of speaking. In silence He would weep in the garden, commending His life to the Father's will. In silence He would be crowned King of the Jews - never opening His mouth, as the soldiers and you and I mock the authority of He Who Is with our sins. And in silence, after He gasps with the last of His strength, "Consummatum est", the unthinkable is accomplished - God gives His life for Man, and descends into the silence of death.
All at once the world roars forth. All Creation revolts at the highest sacrilege: the sun darkens, the earth shakes, and the veil is torn. The Son has obeyed in silence - and now the Father shows forth the might of His hand. And the Son in glory raises Himself from the dead - but still, in silence, departs the tomb. And in the silence of Easter morning, the disciples enter the silence of the empty tomb - the silence which crowns their Master, King of All Creation, Conqueror of Death.
The Consecration, a wonder beyond imagining, the incomprehensible mystery of the Creator of All rendering Himself helpless and vulnerable in fragile bread, occurs in a moment of solemn silence. There are the bells, and the sound of the thurible striking the chain, but in that moment, when the Incarnation is made present to us again, there is no fanfare, no choir of angels. The King descends in silence, to be received by us in silence, to dwell within us in silence. But it is only in the silence of the churches, that same mournful silence that fell over the ruined Temple, that we appreciate these silent motions of Our Lord that we have so often ignored, and that we realise the depth of His love for us, communicated in that silence.
Let us crown Him, then, in the silence of our hearts. Let us crown Him with our time, our attention, with the things we hold back but which we know He desires. Let us, like Him, commend our lives in silence and faith to the Father's will. Let us quiet the ever-raging noise within and listen to Him in His silence, and learn to enter likewise into it. And let us thus crown Him with ourselves, little though we may be, but precious beyond imagining to Him.
On the last day He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead. But His glory, overwhelming as it is, is not the raucous noise of the world. In that radiant light is the tranquility of order, the peace of all things. It is the light of the Logos, through Whom all things were made, and through Whom all will be remade. Let us await, then, that day, in peace, hope, faith and silence, allowing Him to slowly remake us in the depths of our hearts. For it is in silence that the King obeyed His Father, and rose again from the dead - and in silence, we shall do likewise.
O Jesus, my Jesus, my Lord and my God, I love and adore Thee. Have mercy on me, a sinner.
A blessed Lent to all.
- John Khoo