By Emily Schmid
It is not earth-shattering news for me to point out that our world is extremely noisy. Every day, I am bombarded by hourly “breaking news” headlines in my inbox or fun cat videos sent by my family. I bombard myself by checking multiple times a day to see if my favorite influencer has posted a new video. I wake up early to pray, but only after I watch “one more video,” which ends up being an hour’s worth of videos instead of an hour of reading Scripture.
Recently, I was reflecting on why I find it so hard to pray, and God simply told me, “Because you are on your phone too much.” I have a deep desire and ache in my heart to hear God, but there are too many distractions in my life drowning out His voice. I realized it’s not a matter of God being silent; it’s a matter of me not listening.
For Lent, I am embracing silence. Drawing from Henri Nouwen’s The Way of the Heart, I am pausing social media and replacing doom-scrolling with time spent listening to God. My hope is to deepen my love for Jesus and cultivate a lasting habit of making space for Him in my daily life.
I invite everyone to consider the noisy places in their lives and to carve out more space for silence so they can hear God speak to their hearts. You might take a holy hour in our Adoration chapel or wake up 15 minutes earlier to do the 1% Challenge in the quiet of the morning.
At weekend Masses, while we are not going completely silent, we are embracing simplicity. We will not sing the Gloria, and instead of an entrance hymn, we will sing a simple entrance antiphon.
To hear God’s voice, we must quiet the noise in our lives, creating space for Him through prayer and simplicity. Let us use this Lent to listen to God in His love for us.