Most of us do not look forward to seeing a doctor. The appointment often means we are not feeling well, concerned about a new ache or pain, or dealing with a physical problem that requires ongoing medical attention.

 

What can make an appointment with a doctor especially frustrating is arriving on time, entering the office, and seeing the waiting room filled with people. After checking in with the receptionist, we are told, “The doctor will see you shortly.” From experience we know that “shortly” is measured not in minutes but sometimes in hours.

 

As we sit down, we realize that we have not brought our smartphone with us or anything to read, the television in the waiting room is not working, and the few magazines available in the room are in the hands of other patients.

 

We sit in silence, worried about our health and wondering when we will be called to the examination room, where we realize that we will be told once again that the doctor will see us shortly.

 

Sitting in silence is not something most of us like to do. It can make us uncomfortable.

 

Yet being silent and being attentive to the moment is something that seems to be essential to our spiritual life.

 

In this Sunday’s First Reading (1 King 19: 9a, 11-13a), the Prophet Elijah flees for his life to Horeb, the mountain also known as Mount Sinai. It was on that mountain, where some four hundred years earlier, Moses had received the commandments and where the presence of God had been revealed in fire, thunder, lightning, and earthquakes. However, Elijah did not encounter God in such a dramatic fashion but by being still and silent enough to recognize the presence of God in “a tiny whispering sound.”

 

In our Gospel (Matthew 14:22-33), after feeding a crowd of thousands with five loaves and two fish, “Jesus made the disciples get into a boat and precede him” to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. Then Jesus dismissed the crowd. Once he was alone, Jesus “went up on the mountain by himself to pray…he was there alone.” Jesus spent most of the night there in the silence and the presence of God.

 

It was in the silence that Elijah and Jesus encountered God. And that remains true to this day. God often makes himself known to us in ways that require us to be silent. For it takes quiet and stillness to recognize God’s presence and to hear the whispering sound of his voice as he speaks to our heart.

 

However, many of us are not comfortable with being still, quiet, and silent. We live in a society that immerses us in an ocean of noise, distractions, and social media that drown out the silence needed to recognize the gentle presence of God.

 

It was an encounter with God in the silence that strengthened Elijah to continue his mission. And we might say that it was the prayerful, silent time that Jesus spent on the mountain that empowered him to walk on the water to his disciples as their boat “was being tossed about by the waves, for the wind was against it.”

 

Being silent and focusing our minds on the presence of God takes effort. We might begin by simply using the unexpected moments of silence that come our way to practice directing our attention to God’s presence. We can even do that in a doctor’s waiting room.

 

© 2026 Rev. Thomas Iwanowski