There is something strangely quiet about the work of salvation. I can think of few things quieter than the exchange between the Archangel Gabriel and the Virgin Mary. The entire cosmos was undergoing a radical transformation (God becoming man) while the entire interchange might have been whispered. No one noticed that anything was going on.
By the same token, the most essential act of salvation on a day-to-day or week-to-week basis is found in the act of eating and drinking – the reception of the Eucharist. It is an act so simple that, in Orthodoxy, even an infant shares in it.
These are symptomatic of faith in its deepest levels. The universe is changed while the world is none the wiser. C.S. Lewis describes his coming to faith in the existence of God. Though conversations had been taking place, the moment itself was utterly mundane. He said that he got on a bus as an atheist and got off the bus as a believer. Not longer after, he knelt in private and prayed to Christ, “the most reluctant convert in all of England.”
There are heroic moments in the story of faith – martyrs enduring terrible tortures and the such-like. But the story of faith is not like the story of nations. The latter offer tales of generals and great battles, of documents of genius and uprisings on the street. But nations have come and gone while the quiet work of salvation carries on. Our culture has tended to de-value the mundane. We celebrate figures who are “larger than life,” and market a life that is “exciting.” We want to be thrilled.
However, there is an important instruction in this understanding of God’s saving work in our lives. Human life mostly consists in quiet actions. One-third of each day is spent in sleep (on average). The most valuable thing in our life is love, something that does not need to be loud.
My house is fronted by a road that gets a fair amount of traffic. Though it is two lanes with a couple of tight curves, it nevertheless plays host to needless noise: cars and trucks with bumper music that rattles windows, floors, and furniture, as well as with the deeply popular no-muffler mufflers. It is striking that so many find it necessary to drive so “large.” In all of its noise, no one is being saved.
The work of salvation is the quiet forgiveness that must greet such disruptions of the peace.
Somewhere, reluctant converts are kneeling, and parents are trying to quiet noisy children. In peace, we eat and drink the Body and Blood of God, whose triumph over death and hell took place beyond our sight and hearing. How quietly love abides, greeting us with a gentle word, soothing our wrath and inviting us to return the same to all.
Peace be with you.
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