It’s Christmas. Be Quiet!

W ith a thundering voice, Father Bill Holt, O.P., a Dominican priest in Manhattan, preaches frequently about the “thunder of silence.” (O.P. stands for Order of Preachers, and so he is.) Father Holt isn’t just any Catholic priest. He’s one who went viral during Covid. A video was posted, unbeknownst to him, of him smoking on the St. Vincent Ferrer priory steps, with some natural animation. There he was, being himself, quite relatable, and yet with something clearly more, deeper, radiating. Something magnetic. Some of us believe that God works with everything, and Father Holt’s regular presence — not just on TikTok, but on Lexington Ave. — is being used for more than puffs on a cigarette. He doesn’t need to be preaching to witness to something more. Who is this man in a white habit living next door to this Gothic church seemingly from another time? What does he have that we all want?

Can I be the only person who felt guilt when encountering my first Christmas decorations of the season? I’m pretty sure I saw my year pass, in my mind’s eye, if not a little bit of the rest of my life. It all goes so fast, I thought, as I rushed for one of many flights over the past few weeks. What if, instead, we retrained ourselves? Instead of standing in an elevator or anywhere else, looking at our phones, what if we looked other people in the eye? What if we looked up? What if we smiled? I’ve tried it now that we’re not all wearing masks. People actually smile back!

I have a two-minute radio spot on weekdays that airs throughout the day on the Catholic Channel on Sirius XM, Channel 129. When I’m not talking about the news or the saint of the day, I often share conversations I have with Uber drivers. A man from Nigeria who is grateful for the opportunities in the U.S. — still. A mother who adopted a daughter from China — for both mother and daughter, that gift of life has changed them for the better, to the core. A man who used to live down the block from Mother Teresa in Calcutta, before she was a household name, and go to Sunday Mass at her convent. It is amazing what and who we get to meet and learn from when we are more than transactional in our daily running to and fro. Believe me, I’m not expert in it, but I am always better for it.

The holiday season, as it has become known, should be about love. Walking past a Macy’s “Give Love” display in Chicago the other day, I hoped that everyone knows you can’t actually buy love at a Macy’s. (Didn’t the Beatles teach us this?) Perhaps this year, don’t worry so much about the gifts or making everything perfect. Being present to others goes a long way. As silly as it is, that’s part of the power of Father Holt’s hanging out on Lexington Ave. A passerby might think he looks like something out of Star Wars, or she may think: Hmmm. God must not have given up on us, because there are still priests, and he looks like one I could talk to about the hot mess of my life and the longings of my heart to forgive and be forgiven.

I went to see the Martin Scorsese movie Silence with a friend who was on the road to becoming Catholic but not quite there yet. Based on the novel by Shūsaku Endō, the main character is a Jesuit missionary priest in Japan who becomes an apostate. (Or does he?) My friend told me that the movie was the closest encounter he had ever had with the mercy of God. As a cradle Catholic, I might sometimes take God’s mercy for granted, because I can encounter it as often as want in the Sacrament of Reconciliation — Confession. On Francis’s first Sunday as pope, I stood in St. Peter’s Square as he implored: God never tires of forgiving you! Never tire of seeking His mercy. What if we would all be instruments of mercy?

We’re all exhausted. Or at least most of us? By politics. By bills. By just about everything on our phones. By things that are the most life-giving, too: needy children, a sick spouse, a dying parent. Both Ann and Mitt Romney have been known to talk, to less political audiences, about the bag of rocks every person carries that often goes unknown to others. Could it be that our gift to others this holiday season is to consider the person who annoys us the most and remember that he probably has a burden unknown to us? Dorothy Day said: “You love God just as much as the one you love least.” There’s our challenge for the end of 2022.

And if I may make a plug, only because it might help: Just before Covid, a book I put together, A Year with the Mystics: Visionary Wisdom for Daily Living, was published. My prayer was that it might help draw people into the thunder of silence, to get to know God better, to get to know love better. For the rest of November, it is on a wildly discounted sale at tanbooks.com. If it helps to quiet your soul or the soul of someone you love, thanks be to God. Find something that does, so you can be present and not anxiously scrolling in the middle of holly and ivy and all the rest. Find rest, however impossible it may seem.  Everyone in your life will be better for it. If enough of us rise to the occasion, even our politics may one day be better for it, too.

This column is based on one available through Andrews McMeel Universal’s Newspaper Enterprise Association.