Silence! God is Here!

Adé Béthune, a noted designer of churches, recommended the creation of spaces of transition. One should not have to pass abruptly from the parking lot into the church.

Some parishes may want to create a "garden of silence" between the parking lot and the door of the church.

Others will want to rethink the narthex: the space between the church's inner and outer doors.

When you arrive at the door of your church, stop to take holy water with your right hand. Make the sign of the cross. Cross the threshold of the house of God deliberately and reverently. If the Blessed Sacrament is reserved in the sanctuary of the church, genuflect, bringing your right knee to the ground in an act of adoration. If the Blessed Sacrament is not reserved where you can see it, bow profoundly before the altar.

Use the moments that remain to ready your heart for the Sacred Liturgy. Greet the Mother of God, the angels and the saints represented in your church's holy images.

In a Roman basilica, visited by hundreds of pilgrims each day, there is a sign that says, "Silence! God is here."

The recovery of silence in church is the first step in fostering the "eucharistic amazement" to which Pope John Paul II has called the Church of the New Millennium.

By Fr. Mark-Daniel Kirby, OCist, PhD.
Copyright ©2005,
Archdiocese of Chicago,
Liturgy Training Publications;
1-800-933-1800;www.ltp.org