“Let them not rejoice over me who are wrongfully my enemies; nor let them wink with the eye who hate me without a cause. For they do not speak peace, but they devise deceitful matters against the quiet ones in the land” (Psalm 35:20).
Every parish has them, praise the Lord. They are never heard, yet they hear all that takes place in the church. They rarely speak up at parish meetings or in the clusters of talkers who have so much to say about the pastor and the affairs of the congregation. They aren’t the ones who present themselves at banquets, offer toasts, or rush forth to be first in line to greet visiting hierarchs or other dignitaries. They don’t feel it’s their place to make speeches or to call attention to themselves. They are the quiet ones.
Yet they are the ones known to the Lord and to the pastors of our churches. Without them nothing would be accomplished. They are the volunteers—set up chairs and tables, clean up after the affairs, do the menial jobs that the proud ones deign to be beneath them to perform.
You can find them in the Bible. All the evangelists take note of them. St. Joseph spent most of his life as a simple carpenter until he was entrusted with an assignment that nobody but he was capable of fulfilling. Obedience without questioning or contradiction. Take notice that Joseph never speaks a word throughout the narrative of his role in the plan of God for our salvation. Consider also the spiritual maturity required to heed the dreams sent to him and thereby fulfill the will of the Lord.
Other examples are the blessed elders in the temple waiting for the messiah’s coming. Symeon and Anna nourished peace in their souls despite the turmoil of politics and the instability of the religious leaders in the Jerusalem of their time. So too with Zachariah and Elizabeth as well as Joachim and Anna—all of them among the quiet ones of the land.
St. Luke with his eye of the physician and artist calls to our attention the way that our Lord Jesus took into account the quiet ones. The poor widow who squeezed her last two coins for a moment before dropping them into the temple treasury. Lazarus, another like Joseph who never utters a word recorded in the gospels, and Mary, his kid sister. The mother of the prodigal son. St. Peter’s mother-in-law.
It seems that St. Luke in Acts was portraying St. Barnabas as among the quiet ones of the Land. He it was who interceded for St. Paul when the apostles and other were wary of the man who was notorious for persecuting the Christians. Later on, when Barnabas accompanied Paul on their missionary journey, it was Barnabas who willingly accepted a secondary role, allowing the charismatic Paul to take the lead in preaching to the Gentiles about the glorious life, death and resurrection of our Lord, God and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Again it is Barnabas who valiantly but fruitlessly acted as intercessor when St. Paul was exasperated with St. Mark who deserted them in Pamphylia [Acts 15:38].
And so it is throughout the blessed history of our salvation. We honor those who are content to sing in the back rows of our choirs, who take orders rather than give them, who can be counted on to do whatever is required without yearning for recognition. They define and give meaning to the enigmatic pronouncement of our Lord regarding the Kingdom of heaven and the ordering of priorities over there:
“Many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first” (Matthew 19:30).