Vatican City, Jul 11, 2004 / 22:00 pm
The Holy Father spoke of the importance of silence in order to listen to the “voice of God,” during the recitation of the Angelus yesterday at his vacation site of Les Combes d’Introd, in the Valle d’Aosta, with 6,000 faithful.
“In this oasis of quiet,” said the Pope, “amidst the marvelous spectacle of nature, one easily senses the value of silence, today an increasingly rare good. The many opportunities for relationships and for information that modern society offers risk sometimes eliminating room for recollection, to the point of making people incapable of reflecting and praying.”
“In reality, only in silence can man succeed in listening, in the intimacy of his conscience, to the voice of God, which truly makes him free. And vacations can help us rediscover and cultivate this indispensable inner dimension of human existence.”
Saying that “the perfect model of listening to God” is Mary, to whom many shrines are dedicated in Valle d'Aosta, he blessed the statue of Our Lady of Gran Paradiso, a mountain in the area where he is vacationing, noting that the statue “had been restored 50 years after being placed on the peak of that majestic mountain.”