FINE SILENCE

“The famous story about God’s voice (Word) heard by Elijah when he is hiding in the cave on Mount Horeb “until the Lord shall pass by” is often translated poorly. After the earthquake and the thunder, God is revealed not in a breeze, but “the sound of fine silence.” That is what we try to hear in meditation before the Most Holy Eucharist, after Holy Communion, alone after a service: the thin sound of special silence, which is the voice of the Maker of the Universe. This is what the Carmelite longs to hear, in cloister or hermitage. That is what we were made for: to hear the sound of fine silence, and know that he is God, and that he is near to us.” Father Christopher Zuggar

This is a wonderful and more careful understanding of the commonly translated term “still small voice.” This is because what we hear in silence is silence and not a still small voice. The silence is the voice. As David wrote in the Psalms, “My soul waits in silence for God only.”

“My sheep…will not follow the voice of strangers.” Jesus