Schlichting (journalist), “After the encounter with Christ, everything is transformed into silence and prayer”

“Prayer requires silence, but our time does not provide it. There is no silence in traffic, nor on Twitter or Facebook. We read and chat constantly on the computer. There is no space for contemplation.” This was said by Cristina López Schlichting, a Spanish journalist, who spoke this morning during the panel session on Finding Time for Prayer in the Digital Age, at the Dublin World Meeting of Families. The journalist, indicating how to pray in the midst of daily chaos, told about a conversation between Enzo Piccinini, an Italian surgeon, and a priest, Father Luigi Giussani, who explained to his friend how “the moment of prayer begins when he introduces the scalpel into a patient’s flesh.” “If we do not need silence today, perhaps we should not reflect on the lack of devotion,” the journalist said, “Perhaps, it is simply that nothing happens that makes us shut up.” This is how, thanks to the encounter with Christ, “all of reality is transformed into a rhythm of silence.” “Every opportunity improves the life of others: suffering, laughter, work, rest, happiness, even death. Every space becomes a space for prayer. Twitter, Facebook, Internet, television, radio, media. Everything becomes a moment and space of silence. This is called redemption.”