Homily for Friday of the 10th Week in Ordinary Time

In our Psalm response today, which comes from Psalm 27, we hear the prayer of one who earnestly searches for God. "I long to see your face, O Lord."  

The quest of this Psalm resonates with all of us because we are all, to varying degrees, searchers. Our ultimate search is for God, the source of our existence and destiny. St. Augustine echoes the longing of this prayer when he says, "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you."

The searcher in us, the active participant in our spiritual journey, makes us travelers toward God. Elijah, the prophet, was that kind of searcher when he embarked on his journey to the mountain of God, Mount Sinai or Mount Horeb, as it was also called. In a cave on that mountain, he encountered God in a quiet way, in a "sound of sheer silence."

Silence, a precious and often elusive commodity in our busy and noisy lives, is where the Lord is best heard. We often have to actively seek such silence to find it. To seek silence is to seek the Lord because it is where we become most aware of the Lord's presence.