1. The world seems implicated in some aboriginal calamity beyond human solution. Man seems out of joint with the purpose of his Creator. John Newman noted this during his times but he seems to be describing today's events. With the world in turmoil from earthquakes to tornadoes, from civil wars to revolutions, the Holy Father whispers: "work for the peace of Christ." Seeing who are involved in this anarchical condition he hopes those with faith would get what the events are hinting at.
2. Many described his response as ' grand silence.' It was because the world, both without and within the Church are descending to atheism led by the sons of the period of enlightenment that has authored the reign of terror in France and whose poison spread throughout Europe and the United States and imposed on the whole world. It was essentially an anti-catholic spirit.
3. The history of the Church has been divided based on the 7 days of creation. The Liturgy expresses the same eras and the daily monastic schedule in monasteries reminds the monks of these 7 stages in monastic spirituality.
4. The monastic schedule is roughly divided into schedules observing different degrees of silence.
5. After compline, St. Benedict in his rule, demands the observance of strict or absolute silence called grand silence. Compline is the last prayer of the day before one goes to sleep.
6. What is the significance of this Grand Silence between compline and sleeping time? Compline is a preparation for death. The time for sleeping, signifies death. Before the death of a monk there is a final battle between the forces of evil and God for his soul.
There is, also, a time in the history of the world where it shall have a compline, wherein God would proclaim the approaching end of the world and how we should stand at that moment. And there is a time for resting when the Church would sleep the sleep of death to resurrect in God. Compline signifies the beginning of the final battle before the death of the world.
This is referred to as the sixth day, presented in the Liturgy from Palm Sunday up to Good Friday. The seventh day is the usual Saturday when Christ remained dead in the tomb and the eight day represents Easter described as the eight day. One day was added to the 7 days- creation story.
7. The sixth day representing the time between compline and sleeping time (or Palm Sunday up to Good Friday) is a time in the history of man when all human drama is orchestrated by God alone setting the stage for His coming. The play is written down in the Apocalypse. Here all men become spectators and decide once and for all on whose side they will be, the forces of evil who introduced original sin in the world ....or God.
Man's posture should only be Grand Silence as a man who have arrived at a crossroad leading into two eternal destinies, one of happiness and the other of damnation and he does not know which road leads to where. He needs to think and decide. He needs grand silence for in silence only can he hear the invitation of God.
The events of the sixth day is orchestrated fully by God because they are meant to beautify the Bride for the wedding with Christ. The tsunamis and earthquakes, the upheavals in Africa and the Middle East are meant to spill blood and fill with sufferings the Church to purify her and complete her number. It is Good Friday in an international scale when we see the defeat of good and the success of evil, 'the helplessness of God,' St. Thomas described it. And the speed of this decline will bewilder the minds of men.
Just as God used the treason of Judas to get the good of redemption out of it, today God will use the greatest evil that ever plaque the world to purify the Church. There are those outside the Church so-called Christians and non-Christians, there are those within the Church all led by fallen dominations and seraphims leading the same personalities they used in history, the children of the period of enlightenment, sons of the French Revolution and Reign of terror who had spread their heresy throughout Europe, the US and the world returning with its most potent weapon, Original sin. And they are not tempting the world. They are imposing it on the whole world under the banner of a distorted Democracy......and the world had fallen under its control and at arms against the Church. And these princess and dominions think they are pulling all the strings as they thought at Good Friday.
John Newman noted that this was the state of a small portion of the Roman empire at the time of Christ's first coming. It is today in a grand scale. What coming of Christ is it announcing?
8. But the Pope knows. He knows that these events are God's doings and are out of man's control. The financial chaos to the change of governments, the civil wars to the martyrdom of Christians, the tsunamis to the nuclear melt down all are staged by the angels of God. So he tells us just to pray and bear the sufferings that all Christians have to undergo. St. Paul said the same thing. The Pope even told the Christians in Irag not to leave and face almost the inevitable but asked all to pray for them. We can only stand and be silent and see the God of history take complete control of history doing as He pleases. All these things just have to happen at the sixth hour, the time for Grand Silence, between Compline and the time for sleeping. And as usual He does this to show His glory and power.
It is bed time, the time to rest in the Lord. Let us recite Compline, the Church's night prayer, and observe Grand Silence for 'He is God.'
