His Holiness' message for the 2012 World Media Day (Sunday, May 20th) is extraordinary. The Roman Pontiff implies that contemplatives are the only ones capable of real communication. Men of prayer are the only real communicators. In other words, all journalists need to first of all talk to God in order to know how to talk. Communication with the Word is the necessary source of all meaningful messages. And silence is a necessary context for discovering and asking the truly important questions, all of which point ultimately to God, and all the more necessary the greater the volume of information at hand.
For high quality communication silence is essential and in fact the source, the quiet in which alone one finds God. Get God and you'll have something to say (worth saying)! Be quiet so that you can really talk! You will know the truth and the truth will set you free!
A great message for Lent. It is the logic behind all time for prayer, reflection, days of recollection and retreats, which abound during this holy season. Our Blessed Lord himself spent forty days and forty nights in the desert in prayer and fasting before beginning his three year preaching circuit. And in those three years he was in the habit of spending the whole night alone in prayer (cf. Mk. 6:12).