There is a curious art form in Japanese pottery called Kintsugi, maybe you have heard of it. When a pottery breaks, instead of throwing it away, the artisan repairs it with a gold polish. The cracks aren’t hidden. They’re illuminated. What was once broken and useless is now more beautiful, more valuable, precisely because of its fractures and brokenness.
In today’s Gospel, Zechariah is a man silenced. For nine months, no words. Heaven has hit the mute button on him. Now remember, he’s a priest. Words are his tool, his identity. He blesses, he prays aloud, he chants in the temple. And yet, for 9 months Zechariah is a man of gestures and scribbled tablets. Heaven, it seems, doesn’t trust his voice, yet.
Sacred Silence
Why? Because sometimes, before you can proclaim something holy, God has to clear out the noise. This Gospel isn’t just about John’s birth; it’s about how God prepares the world for a voice like John’s. And it begins, not with a shout, not with a sermon, but with a sacred hush. A priest goes silent. The desert grows still. A baby kicks in the womb, but the words, they wait.
It’s as if God is saying, “Before My Word comes to you, let me teach you to listen.” This is where our modern discomfort kicks in. We hate silence. We fill it with chatter. When we work out at the gym, we blast music through our earbuds, we don’t listen to our body. When we go for a walk, we listen to audiobooks instead of tuning into nature’s divine rhythm. We drive with podcasts narrating every mile. We cook with the television humming in the background. Even in the shower, we ask Alexa to play something.
Silence, to us, feels awkward, almost threatening. So we drown it out, afraid of what we might hear when everything else goes quiet. But for God, silence is the incubator of revelation.
Learning to Listen
When John is finally born, everyone expects the name “Zechariah Jr.” But when his father confirms, “His name is John,” it’s not just a naming, it’s a breaking open. The silence shatters. And then Zechariah speaks, not opinion, not commentary, but prophecy. God is forging a prophet not just in John, but in Zechariah as well. And the first step wasn’t a word. It was a wound. A silence. A pause.
John is not born into noise. He is born into a sacred silence. And when he grows, he embraces that stillness, not the city, not the stage, but the wilderness. And what does John do in that wilderness? He waits. He grows, until the day he appeared publicly.
Learning to Speak
Most of us want our “public appearance” now. We want results. Impact. Metrics. Recognition. But maybe today, John the Baptist reminds us that in God’s plan, the silence, the waiting is not wasted. It is golden, and more precious like Kintsugi. The cracks, the silence, the pauses, they are what prepare us to speak the truth when the time finally comes.
So today, if your life feels like a mute button has been pressed, if the prayers are unanswered, the direction unclear, The awkward delay. the impact hidden, don’t panic. Don’t rush to fill the space. God may be preparing you not to echo others, but to become silent and then to become a voice. A voice worth waiting for. A voice like John’s. A voice born from silence, but thunderous in purpose.
- Father Boby's inspirational homily was recorded live during Mass at the Father Peyton Center this morning. You can view the Mass (and the Rosary at the 30-minute mark) on the Family Rosary YouTube page.
- To join the Rosary and Mass Livestream, visit the Family Rosary YouTube or Facebook page at 11:30 a.m. Eastern, Monday–Friday. Consider inviting others to join, too! (*If you are not a member of Facebook and a signup window appears, select the X at the top of the pop-up message and continue to the livestream.)
