"this golden silence"

"My soul is full of peace and light:
Although in pain, this light shines bright.
For here Thou keepest to Thy breast
My longing heart, to find there rest.

Leave me here freely alone,
In cell where never sunlight shone.
Should no one ever speak to me,
This golden silence makes me free!"
(by Titus Brandsma)

With Christ the King Sunday behind us, we now approach the season of Advent. (Or what the faces on TV crassly call "the Christmas shopping season"--if that hasn't already been the case throughout November!)

The lines above are an excerpt from a poem by the Blessed Titus Brandsma, prisoner at the Dachau concentration camp. The second stanza appears from time to time on the website, Sacred Space.

For him to find "peace and light" in such a horrible place demonstrates true spiritual depth. Still, we need not undergo such intense suffering to find "golden silence." Finding any silence during a "shopping season" is an unlikely scenario. However, silence is certainly a key element to the Advent season. Advent means "coming," and that also means waiting for the One who is coming.

So much of life depends on how we think of time. Are we in a "shopping" season, or are we in a "waiting" season? If the poet could find "golden silence" amid the shouts of Nazis, surely we can find it where we are.