The ideal form of respect is silence. One of the surest symptoms of human maturity is the capacity to keep silent about confidences received, about petty human irregularities observed. When a person who lacks maturity receives a confidence or observes some mistake, instead of exercizing self-control and withholding the news, he may break clown under the psychological burden of the information and let out the news, telling it and spreading it…
The ideal form of respect is silence.
First, interior silence. As Paul says, quarrels and disputes are born in the heart. Before being harsh to the ear, backbiting is first a bitter night in the interior. The heart is where each one has to check and silence backbiting and offer this to Jesus as an oblative sacrifice. Thinking no evil. Feeling no evil. Respecting the other by being silent within.
In the second place, exterior silence. One frequently cannot justify certain reactions of a personality or certain irregular attitudes because, obviously, they are shortcomings. But we can always respect the reputation of the absent brother, simply by remaining silent.
Often, nothing is achieved by preaching, by using flaming words to defend the declining prestige of the neighbor, because the others then double their attack. On the contrary, by simply being silent, one is already defending the other, with nobility and dignity.
In the name of trust, one may violate courtesy. And it is not rare to find persons in some houses who in the name of trust mutually treat each other in vulgar ways.
We should cultivate silence with the same devotion as a believer cultivates friendship with God. Some explosive news has come to your ears. What an urge to tell it. Lock it away in the chest of silence.
Extracted from the book Come with Me by Fr. Ignacio Larrañaga
