納匝肋的聖家是一所學校，在那裡我們開始學習耶穌的生活，這是讓我們學習福音的學校……首先它給我們的一課是靜默，但願我們恢復對靜默的重視，這是心靈上不可缺少的寧靜氣氛……另一課是家庭生活，納匝肋教導我們甚麼是家庭，甚麼是愛的交流，甚麼是家庭簡樸而平實的美，以及其神聖而不可侵犯的特點……；另一課是工作，啊！納匝肋「木匠之子」的家！在你這裡，我們希望了解並宣告那雖嚴厲卻具救贖效能的勞作……；最後，我們要向全世界的工人致敬，並向他們推薦一位偉大的模範，就是他們那位身為天主子的長兄。 (保祿六世，1964年1月5日)
The home of Nazareth is the school where we begin to understand the life of Jesus - the school of the Gospel. First, then, a lesson of silence. May esteem for silence, that admirable and indispensable condition of mind, revive in us. . . A lesson on family life. May Nazareth teach us what family life is, its communion of love, its austere and simple beauty, and its sacred and inviolable character... A lesson of work. Nazareth, home of the "Carpenter's Son", in you I would choose to understand and proclaim the severe and redeeming law of human work. . . To conclude, I want to greet all the workers of the world, holding up to them their great pattern their brother who is God. (Paul VI at Nazareth, 5 January 1964)
「當孩子做惡夢被驚醒，哭鬧時…，父親會走過去對他說：別怕！別怕！我在這裡。上主也這樣向我們說話。『雅各伯蟲豸啊！以色列蛆蟲啊！不要害怕』（依四一14）。上主就是以這種方式同我們說話：祂接近我們…。當我們看到爸爸或媽媽向他們的孩子說話時，我們看到他們變成了小孩子，以小孩子的聲音說話，做孩子所做的動作。旁觀者會認為：這些人真是荒唐！父母親在那個時刻成了孩子，難道不是嗎？因為父母的愛需要趨向孩子，我用這句話來形容：需要俯下身來到孩子的世界中。若爸爸媽媽以正常的方式與孩子們說話，孩子們同樣會明白的；但是他們願意以孩子說話的方式同他們講話。天主也這樣同我們說話」。
教宗提到希臘神學家在解釋天主的這個舉止時用了一個相當難的字：「屈尊就卑」，就是說，天主俯身，貶抑自己，進入世界，成了我們中的一個」。
教宗說：「爸爸媽媽也向孩子說些可笑的話，『啊！我的寶貝，我的玩具等等。上主也這樣說：『雅各伯蟲豸』，『你為我來說是蟲豸，是一個小東西，但我十分愛你』。這是上主的語言，父親和母親的語言。我們聽到上主對我們說的話，但也能看到他如何對我們說話。我們應做上主所做的，按照他所說的去做：以愛、溫柔和謙讓對待兄弟姐妹」。
教宗解釋厄里亞先知與上主相遇時說，「天主就像一縷微風」，就如原文所說，上主以「無聲的旋律」接近我們。教宗最後結論說：「這是上主的語言的風格，我們在準備聖誕節期間，應感受到這風格：這對我們非常有益。通常，聖誕節似乎是個十分喧鬧的節日：一點點的靜默對我們有益處，能讓我們聽到愛的言語，關懷和溫柔的話語…。『你是蟲豸，我非常愛你』。為此，讓我們靜默，在這將臨期，就如彌撒中的頌謝詞說的，我們警醒等待」。
(教宗方濟各)
“When the child has a bad dream, he wakes up, cries . . . the father goes and says, ‘Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid, I’m here.’ That’s how the Lord speaks to us. ‘Do not fear, you worm Jacob, you maggot Israel’ (Isaiah 41,13). The Lord has this way of speaking to us: He is near . . . When we look at a father or a mother who speaks to their little child, we see that they become little and speak with a voice of a child and with the manners of children. Someone looking in from the outside think, ‘This is ridiculous!’ They become smaller, right there, no? Because the love of a father and a mother needs to be close. I say this word: to lower themselves to the world of the child. . . . If the father and mother spoke to them normally, the child would still understand; but they want to take up the manner of speaking of the child. They come close, they become children. And so it is with the Lord.”
The Greek theologians, Pope Francis recalled, explained this attitude of God with a somewhat difficult word: “synkatábasi” or “the humble and accommodating disposition [condiscendenza] of God who lowers Himself to make Himself one of us.”
“And so, the father and the mother also say ridiculous things to the child: ‘Ah, my love, my toy . . .’ and all these things. And the Lord says this too, ‘you worm Jacob,’ ‘you are like a worm to me, a tiny little thing, but I love you so much.’ This is the language of the Lord, the language of the love of a father, of a mother. The word of the Lord? Yes, we understand what He tells us. But we also see how He says it. And we must do what the Lord does, do what He says and do it as He says it: with love, with tenderness, with that condescension towards the brethren.”
Pope Francis referred to Elijah’s encounter with God, when the Lord came to him as “a sweet breeze” (cf. 1 Kings 19,11ff), or, as it says in the original text, “a sound of silence”. That is how the Lord draws near, with that resonance of silence that is proper to love. Without making a spectacle.” And “He becomes small in order to make me strong; He goes to death, with that condescendence, so that I might live”:
“This is the music of the language of the Lord, and we, in the preparation for Christmas, ought to hear it: it would do us so much good. Normally, Christmas seems to be a very noisy holiday: it would do us good to have a little silence and to hear these words of love, these words of such nearness, these words of tenderness . . . ‘You are a worm, but I love you so much.’ [Let us pray] for this, and to be silent in this time in which, as it says in the preface, we are watchful in waiting.”
(Pope Francis, 12 Dec 2013)
Silence! God speaks to us like a child
