Today's readings are an opportunity to consider the value of virtue that we can add to our faith. The selection from the Second Letter of St. Peter specifically instructs the hearers and readers "to supplement your faith with virtue."
One way we can supplement our faith is to work at seriously become more familiar with silence, especially the silence that comes through prayer and solitude.
When Jesus went off into the wilderness -- those days of prayer -- he found himself confronting the demons that tried to distract him with temptations. For most of us there is something about our world that blocks our efforts to feel comfortable with silence. There is a very human reaction to silence. Perhaps it may be likened to the person on the diving board for the first time --- even if the board is only a few feet above the water's surface. That first dive is long in coming because there is an fear that one spring off the board and control is lost. The moments of the small, preparatory jumps that do not result in the final springing into the air and falling into water are much like the hesitation that challenge one's experiences at the doorway to silence.
When life is busy, most often the encounter with silence "involves slamming to a screeching halt" (Ruth Haley Barton, Invitation to Solitude and Silence). So many concerns of daily work and living weigh down on us. This burden of what you cannot touch becomes so real as we think about entering into prayerful quiet. Modern humanity it seems is so afraid of solitude. We know that we are going to encounter our own demons from the past there. So often fears spring up trying to keep us from crossing the silence threshold.
More is to come about the fears or challenges of entering solitude. Enough for today. Suffice it to give thought to this: adding virtue to our faith needs an openness to God and his voice that will become audible to us in the quiet when we surrender control of our lives.
