Revealed Not by Flesh and Blood
After watching Silence again, I began to write these words (aptly) in relative silence, save for the thrum of my laptop fan. I clasped my hands together in contemplation, and considered the feelings it evoked in me...about faith, suffering, love, and forgiveness. Alone with my thoughts, I recalled a line spoken by the film’s tortured protagonist—the Jesuit priest, Sebastião Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield)—near the end of Silence, emerging from the quiet as so many figures in the film emerge from the fog and darkness: “It was in the silence that I heard your voice.”
Silence is a meditative film, confronting the audience with their own feelings about everything from religion and faith to mercy and forgiveness, and how they blend together. As an experiment, I recently watched Silence over the course of a couple of days, pausing periodically to absorb each scene and consider its individual impact on me. I wanted to see if by reflecting on the film—which is structured somewhat like a three-act play—I would glean different insight or appreciation. Silence offers a message beyond religion and cultures without excluding them. What stood out the most for me after my first viewing in the theaters was how Silence explores the fundamental cornerstone of Christianity, which is forgiveness, and how the state can manipulate religion to maintain dominion over a nation. Future viewings helped me acknowledge how we define God by our guardians and mentors, and subsequently see these aspects in ourselves to reinforce our convictions—even if it promotes misguided motivations, like pride. And above it all, Silence reminds me what it means to believe in God and why.
Silence is about a pair of Jesuit priests—Rodrigues and his comrade, Francisco Garupe (Adam Driver)—who seek their mentor, Cristóvão Ferreira (Liam Neeson) in Japan after receiving word that he had “apostatized” (i.e. renounced Christianity). The young priests recruit an unreliable native Japanese named Kichijiro (Yōsuke Kubozuka) to guide them to this foreign land, where their mere presence is anathema to the ruling shogunate. Rodrigues bears witness to all manner of tortures inflicted on faithful Japanese Christians, and suffers betrayal after betrayal, testing his faith in the benevolence and mercy of his God. Faith is the most notoriously elusive of mental states; for those who have it, it is stronger than diamond, but it is prone to be as ephemeral as the wind with all but the application of doubt. And Rodrigues has doubt upon doubt layered on him by the shogunate, led by the patronizing inquisitor, Inoue (Issey Ogata), and including his serpentine, unnamed interpreter (Tadanobu Asano).
Inoue is experienced at forcing Jesuits to recant their faith—evidenced by the transformation of Ferreira—and exploits Rodrigues’ deeply concealed pride in his beliefs to undermine him as opposed to inflicting physical pain. When Rodrigues cites that the seat of the church is the “blood of martyrs”, Inoue exasperatedly agrees that killing the faithful only strengthens their conviction. Inoue is a despot who views himself as a kind of shepherd, treating his prisoners like pets or livestock. His nasally condescension reminds me of the Captain from Cool Hand Luke; he all but uses the argument that he and Rodrigues disagree due to their “failure to communicate”. The interpreter initially poses as an ally to Rodrigues, but is soon thereafter revealed to be just another tool of the inquisitor to turn the priest’s sympathies for the faithful against him. He reminds me of the Nazi defense attorney Hans Rolfe from Judgment at Nuremburg, or more pointedly, the snake from the Garden of Eden—applying selective logic to twist Rodrigues’ perception of his mission from one of saving souls to merely feeding his own vanity.
Both Inoue and the interpreter—and subsequently, Ferreira—posit that Christianity is a “tree” that cannot thrive in the “swamp” of Japan, employing Eastern metaphors about nature to drive home their point. They extol the virtues of Buddhism over Rodrigues’ religion often, in-between episodes where they force Rodrigues to witness the terrible cruelties they inflict on their own people. The interpreter peppers his subversive discourse with lines like “you cling to your illusions and call them ‘faith’”, referring to a core conceit of Buddhism where only by freeing oneself of illusions can enlightenment be achieved. When I watched Silence with a friend, he commented that he found it hard to believe that Buddhists would commit such hateful acts; I replied that it was not the Buddhists who committed the atrocities, but the government, using religion as an excuse to persecute others. It is a common thread in history that religion is wielded by nations to consolidate and maintain power—one that will likely never fully vanish. Consider when the inquisition comes to Tomogi village, and one of the secretly faithful, Mokichi (Shinya Tsukamoto), deflects the accusation that there are Christians hiding there by saying that they “pay their taxes”. For the shogunate and its executors like Inoue, persecuting Christians really has nothing to do with religious practices in Japan. It is a threat because it offers hope to the downtrodden—a dangerous thing for an oppressed people to have, because it leads to thoughts of “freedom” and “equality”, which are the true enemy of a tyranny. The parallels between the persecution of Christians in Silence and the occupation of Jerusalem by the Romans in the time of Jesus Christ is deliberate, as is Rodrigues’ own existential “Passion”.
Rodrigues narrates most of Silence, first in his correspondence to Alessandro Valignano (Ciarán Hinds)—the Jesuit priest who reluctantly gives Rodrigues and Garupe permission to make for Japan—and later in his prayers, seeking understanding in his own dark night of the soul. Before he makes his voyage to Japan, Rodrigues recalls the face of Christ—as painted by El Greco—staring down at him, giving him the fortitude to perform his perilous mission. Rodrigues is not a superficially vain man, but as with Garupe before they make the trip, they are relative neophytes—children of the Church, unfamiliar with the hardships yet to come. This begs the question as to the “real” reason Rodrigues became a priest, hinted at in his crisis of faith which is the central conflict in Silence. Rodrigues seems to take pride in making his pilgrimage to Japan with “no luggage save for their hearts”, as though he aims to prove to himself (and Ferreira) that he can be a paragon of their faith. This hubris is his obvious weakness which Inoue can see even if Rodrigues cannot, and to which the interpreter comments that because he is “arrogant” he will “korobu”, or fall down.
Rodrigues’ narration is telling; he sees himself as the center of his mission, asking “what will I do for Christ”, and his observations about the wretched and persecuted could easily be applied to himself. Rodrigues exemplifies truly benevolent characteristics on the surface—he shares his “tangible signs of faith” with the residents of Tomogi village and Kichijiro’s home of Gotō Island, parting with his rosary and cross to bolster the faith of the downtrodden. But Rodrigues subconsciously identifies himself as being blessed with some kind of divine connection, and considers it his personal mission to take on the suffering of others. As Ferreira accuses him later, his pride is in believing himself to be exclusively able to bear that suffering—subsequently placing himself on equal footing as Jesus Christ—while depriving the faithful of discovering forgiveness (and “enlightenment”) for themselves. There are numerous hints of this throughout Silence, not least of which is when he sees the visage of Jesus in his own reflection. It is a direct challenge to his ego, and the true motivations for his faith and mission. To further use Buddhist phrasing, it is his “illusion” which keeps Rodrigues from hearing the real message of Christ, and it isn’t until he submits that the silence is broken, and he dispels these self-deceptions. Rodrigues starts listening to the voice of God, heretofore unheard beneath the sounds of the natural world in Japan.
Silence opens with Ferreira and his comrades being tortured by water that has been heated to boiling temperatures by volcanic hot springs—an iconic symbol of the island nation of Japan, formed along the tectonic Ring of Fire of the Pacific Ocean. He comments that he is in a kind of “Hell” in his final correspondence to his Jesuit brethren. Valignano considers his mission a failure, a statement which immediately provokes Rodrigues and Garupe to dispute this, despite having no evidence to the contrary. The reason for their fervent belief that Ferreira has not “betrayed” is because he was their mentor first and foremost—the “best of us”. For Ferreira to apostatize would be akin to their faith being deemed invalid, and their perception of God would be diminished. Like with Rodrigues’ pride, this speaks to how we tend to use our personal experiences to frame our worldview and, yes, our faith. Rodrigues sees God as a father—his Catholic prayers say as much, but for him it is literal. Though Silence leaves much of the background of the mentorship between Ferreira and Rodrigues to the imagination, the age difference and the level of devotion strongly suggests that there exists a kind of paternal bond, and Rodrigues likely learned all he did about his faith from Ferreira. For him, God is the father he follows out of faith to salvation, so that he may also become a shepherd for the wayward in time, and give his life purpose. (The cunning Inoue is acutely aware of this tendency, and leverages his own age to mislead Rodrigues, who initially fails to identify him as the inquisitor.) For Rodrigues, the cruelest cut of all comes when he is confronted by the turned Jesuit—a final betrayal that emotionally dwarfs the monstrous persecutions witnessed by the imprisoned priest in the first two “acts”. The man he called “father” has become the antithesis of all he has suffered for and worse—the embodiment of his doubts, that all of his suffering has been for nothing.
Ferreira is reintroduced to Rodrigues—and the audience—outfitted in Japanese accoutrements and clean shaven; he is even given a Japanese name: Sawano Chūan. His transformation and Rodrigues’ quest to find and “rescue” his mentor recalls Apocalypse Now, with Ferreira as Colonel Kurtz, whose mere existence becomes a threat to all that Rodrigues values. Inoue, the interpreter, and Ferreira all conspire to rip apart Rodrigues’ concept of faith. Even Ferreira’s initial silence when they are reunited echoes the seed of doubt within Rodrigues about the existence of God when implores that “if you have any pity for me, [you will] say something”. When Rodrigues’ hope is shattered, he is shattered—his “illusion” of his “father” is sponged away, and he is forced to find his spiritual center without his guidance. He calls Ferreira a “disgrace” while the fallen priest argues in favor of abandoning the faith; but Rodrigues himself had previously prayed for others to apostatize so as to spare them suffering. This well-intended hypocrisy stems from his conflicting desire to save his fellow Christians from suffering, and equating suffering with holiness. Furthermore, as the interpreter intimated when discussing the differences between Buddhism and Christianity, Rodrigues had seen Ferreira as his “Buddha”, or what he could “aspire” to become. When this is ripped away from him—as he says when he arrives in Japan—the “walls of the church have fallen down...”
The more I watch Silence, the more I come to sympathize with Kichijiro’s situation, and what he represents for Rodrigues—the true exemplification of his religion. When Rodrigues and Garupe first meet Kichijiro, they are literally looking down on him; he is a drunk and fervently denies he is a Christian. Garupe expresses his reluctance to trust Kichijiro; Rodrigues offers that it was men like Kichijiro who needed Christ’s forgiveness in the first place, but does so only as hollow rhetoric, lacking the experience to truly understand what this means. Kichijiro’s story is tragic—his family was martyred in front of him because only he would trample on the fumi-e (a metal plaque of Christian imagery) and deny his faith. After Rodrigues and Garupe split up in their search for Ferreira, Rodrigues crosses paths with Kichijiro on Gotō Island, and it becomes clear that Kichijiro conspired to betray Rodrigues to the inquisition to the symbolic tune of three-hundred pieces of silver. While Rodrigues is incarcerated, Kichijiro has the nerve to ask the priest to hear his confession, and Rodrigues contemplates, “How could God forgive a wretch like this?” But as Rodrigues observed prior to this betrayal, it was from Kichijiro who he felt the greatest need for forgiveness, and the person who truly needs forgiveness is a sinner, not one who is without sin. The people of Tomogi village are exceedingly selfless, but largely interpret their faith in “Deusu” from a Japanese mindset, believing that they would dishonor Jesus by trampling, and are willing to sacrifice themselves in the name of said honor. Kichijiro has traveled abroad—even if only to escape persecution—and his sense of guilt and shame speaks to the true paradox of humanity that necessitates forgiveness. We are all born sinners, yet we all desire to be good. It is this ubiquitous conflict that brings suffering—a tenet shared both by Christianity and Buddhism. In the end, it is not Rodrigues’ mission to reclaim Ferreira that reforges his faith, but his shared existential suffering with Kichijiro.
Even comparatively early into Rodrigues’ quest—like when he finds himself alone on Gotō Island—he begins to doubt the existence of God because of His perceived silence, hence the film’s title. Silence begins in darkness with the sounds of crickets chirping, and ends the same way. These “nature” sounds seem to speak more for the defense of Buddhism—honoring the created and material world in lieu of faith in an abstract, intangible deity—and Rodrigues’ exposure to this foreign way of thinking always threatens to subvert his seemingly adamantine convictions. It is almost a cliché to say that God works in mysterious ways, but this is true in Silence, and how Rodrigues to come to terms with his pride and embracing what it means to truly feel the presence of God in his life.
Although parallels are drawn between Rodrigues and the denial of Christ by the Apostle Peter—there is even a rooster crowing three times as dawn breaks when the last priest in Japan apostatizes—a group of children later mock him as “Apostle Paul”. In some ways, Rodrigues shares similarities with the “Apostle of the Gentiles”, formerly known as Saul of Tarsus. For the purposes of Silence, it is especially profound that God reveals himself to Rodrigues in his moment of crisis, forever altering his perception of faith. His whole journey through Japan is essentially his “Road to Damascus”, but until that revelation comes, Rodrigues is circling the void of existential despair. I have known these feelings myself, and this is why I identify so strongly with Silence. I recall a time when I was in great crisis where I called out for God to flee from my soul—and felt that he did, not out of malice but to show me his existence by virtue of its absence. It was a moment where I became wholly convinced of the existence of God. This is why I understand that when Rodrigues hears the voice of God in this darkest hour, it is that same kind of revelation that many of us experience, but not all of us recognize it for what it is. Much has been said about the “silence” of God in everything from cinema, philosophy, poetry, and more. What Silence offers—and asks that we bring ourselves to acknowledge as it is revealed to us—is that silence is not absence.
Silence is a meditative film, confronting the audience with their own feelings about everything from religion and faith to mercy and forgiveness, and how they blend together. As an experiment, I recently watched Silence over the course of a couple of days, pausing periodically to absorb each scene and consider its individual impact on me. I wanted to see if by reflecting on the film—which is structured somewhat like a three-act play—I would glean different insight or appreciation. Silence offers a message beyond religion and cultures without excluding them. What stood out the most for me after my first viewing in the theaters was how Silence explores the fundamental cornerstone of Christianity, which is forgiveness, and how the state can manipulate religion to maintain dominion over a nation. Future viewings helped me acknowledge how we define God by our guardians and mentors, and subsequently see these aspects in ourselves to reinforce our convictions—even if it promotes misguided motivations, like pride. And above it all, Silence reminds me what it means to believe in God and why.
Silence is about a pair of Jesuit priests—Rodrigues and his comrade, Francisco Garupe (Adam Driver)—who seek their mentor, Cristóvão Ferreira (Liam Neeson) in Japan after receiving word that he had “apostatized” (i.e. renounced Christianity). The young priests recruit an unreliable native Japanese named Kichijiro (Yōsuke Kubozuka) to guide them to this foreign land, where their mere presence is anathema to the ruling shogunate. Rodrigues bears witness to all manner of tortures inflicted on faithful Japanese Christians, and suffers betrayal after betrayal, testing his faith in the benevolence and mercy of his God. Faith is the most notoriously elusive of mental states; for those who have it, it is stronger than diamond, but it is prone to be as ephemeral as the wind with all but the application of doubt. And Rodrigues has doubt upon doubt layered on him by the shogunate, led by the patronizing inquisitor, Inoue (Issey Ogata), and including his serpentine, unnamed interpreter (Tadanobu Asano).
Inoue is experienced at forcing Jesuits to recant their faith—evidenced by the transformation of Ferreira—and exploits Rodrigues’ deeply concealed pride in his beliefs to undermine him as opposed to inflicting physical pain. When Rodrigues cites that the seat of the church is the “blood of martyrs”, Inoue exasperatedly agrees that killing the faithful only strengthens their conviction. Inoue is a despot who views himself as a kind of shepherd, treating his prisoners like pets or livestock. His nasally condescension reminds me of the Captain from Cool Hand Luke; he all but uses the argument that he and Rodrigues disagree due to their “failure to communicate”. The interpreter initially poses as an ally to Rodrigues, but is soon thereafter revealed to be just another tool of the inquisitor to turn the priest’s sympathies for the faithful against him. He reminds me of the Nazi defense attorney Hans Rolfe from Judgment at Nuremburg, or more pointedly, the snake from the Garden of Eden—applying selective logic to twist Rodrigues’ perception of his mission from one of saving souls to merely feeding his own vanity.
Both Inoue and the interpreter—and subsequently, Ferreira—posit that Christianity is a “tree” that cannot thrive in the “swamp” of Japan, employing Eastern metaphors about nature to drive home their point. They extol the virtues of Buddhism over Rodrigues’ religion often, in-between episodes where they force Rodrigues to witness the terrible cruelties they inflict on their own people. The interpreter peppers his subversive discourse with lines like “you cling to your illusions and call them ‘faith’”, referring to a core conceit of Buddhism where only by freeing oneself of illusions can enlightenment be achieved. When I watched Silence with a friend, he commented that he found it hard to believe that Buddhists would commit such hateful acts; I replied that it was not the Buddhists who committed the atrocities, but the government, using religion as an excuse to persecute others. It is a common thread in history that religion is wielded by nations to consolidate and maintain power—one that will likely never fully vanish. Consider when the inquisition comes to Tomogi village, and one of the secretly faithful, Mokichi (Shinya Tsukamoto), deflects the accusation that there are Christians hiding there by saying that they “pay their taxes”. For the shogunate and its executors like Inoue, persecuting Christians really has nothing to do with religious practices in Japan. It is a threat because it offers hope to the downtrodden—a dangerous thing for an oppressed people to have, because it leads to thoughts of “freedom” and “equality”, which are the true enemy of a tyranny. The parallels between the persecution of Christians in Silence and the occupation of Jerusalem by the Romans in the time of Jesus Christ is deliberate, as is Rodrigues’ own existential “Passion”.
Rodrigues narrates most of Silence, first in his correspondence to Alessandro Valignano (Ciarán Hinds)—the Jesuit priest who reluctantly gives Rodrigues and Garupe permission to make for Japan—and later in his prayers, seeking understanding in his own dark night of the soul. Before he makes his voyage to Japan, Rodrigues recalls the face of Christ—as painted by El Greco—staring down at him, giving him the fortitude to perform his perilous mission. Rodrigues is not a superficially vain man, but as with Garupe before they make the trip, they are relative neophytes—children of the Church, unfamiliar with the hardships yet to come. This begs the question as to the “real” reason Rodrigues became a priest, hinted at in his crisis of faith which is the central conflict in Silence. Rodrigues seems to take pride in making his pilgrimage to Japan with “no luggage save for their hearts”, as though he aims to prove to himself (and Ferreira) that he can be a paragon of their faith. This hubris is his obvious weakness which Inoue can see even if Rodrigues cannot, and to which the interpreter comments that because he is “arrogant” he will “korobu”, or fall down.
Rodrigues’ narration is telling; he sees himself as the center of his mission, asking “what will I do for Christ”, and his observations about the wretched and persecuted could easily be applied to himself. Rodrigues exemplifies truly benevolent characteristics on the surface—he shares his “tangible signs of faith” with the residents of Tomogi village and Kichijiro’s home of Gotō Island, parting with his rosary and cross to bolster the faith of the downtrodden. But Rodrigues subconsciously identifies himself as being blessed with some kind of divine connection, and considers it his personal mission to take on the suffering of others. As Ferreira accuses him later, his pride is in believing himself to be exclusively able to bear that suffering—subsequently placing himself on equal footing as Jesus Christ—while depriving the faithful of discovering forgiveness (and “enlightenment”) for themselves. There are numerous hints of this throughout Silence, not least of which is when he sees the visage of Jesus in his own reflection. It is a direct challenge to his ego, and the true motivations for his faith and mission. To further use Buddhist phrasing, it is his “illusion” which keeps Rodrigues from hearing the real message of Christ, and it isn’t until he submits that the silence is broken, and he dispels these self-deceptions. Rodrigues starts listening to the voice of God, heretofore unheard beneath the sounds of the natural world in Japan.
Silence opens with Ferreira and his comrades being tortured by water that has been heated to boiling temperatures by volcanic hot springs—an iconic symbol of the island nation of Japan, formed along the tectonic Ring of Fire of the Pacific Ocean. He comments that he is in a kind of “Hell” in his final correspondence to his Jesuit brethren. Valignano considers his mission a failure, a statement which immediately provokes Rodrigues and Garupe to dispute this, despite having no evidence to the contrary. The reason for their fervent belief that Ferreira has not “betrayed” is because he was their mentor first and foremost—the “best of us”. For Ferreira to apostatize would be akin to their faith being deemed invalid, and their perception of God would be diminished. Like with Rodrigues’ pride, this speaks to how we tend to use our personal experiences to frame our worldview and, yes, our faith. Rodrigues sees God as a father—his Catholic prayers say as much, but for him it is literal. Though Silence leaves much of the background of the mentorship between Ferreira and Rodrigues to the imagination, the age difference and the level of devotion strongly suggests that there exists a kind of paternal bond, and Rodrigues likely learned all he did about his faith from Ferreira. For him, God is the father he follows out of faith to salvation, so that he may also become a shepherd for the wayward in time, and give his life purpose. (The cunning Inoue is acutely aware of this tendency, and leverages his own age to mislead Rodrigues, who initially fails to identify him as the inquisitor.) For Rodrigues, the cruelest cut of all comes when he is confronted by the turned Jesuit—a final betrayal that emotionally dwarfs the monstrous persecutions witnessed by the imprisoned priest in the first two “acts”. The man he called “father” has become the antithesis of all he has suffered for and worse—the embodiment of his doubts, that all of his suffering has been for nothing.
Ferreira is reintroduced to Rodrigues—and the audience—outfitted in Japanese accoutrements and clean shaven; he is even given a Japanese name: Sawano Chūan. His transformation and Rodrigues’ quest to find and “rescue” his mentor recalls Apocalypse Now, with Ferreira as Colonel Kurtz, whose mere existence becomes a threat to all that Rodrigues values. Inoue, the interpreter, and Ferreira all conspire to rip apart Rodrigues’ concept of faith. Even Ferreira’s initial silence when they are reunited echoes the seed of doubt within Rodrigues about the existence of God when implores that “if you have any pity for me, [you will] say something”. When Rodrigues’ hope is shattered, he is shattered—his “illusion” of his “father” is sponged away, and he is forced to find his spiritual center without his guidance. He calls Ferreira a “disgrace” while the fallen priest argues in favor of abandoning the faith; but Rodrigues himself had previously prayed for others to apostatize so as to spare them suffering. This well-intended hypocrisy stems from his conflicting desire to save his fellow Christians from suffering, and equating suffering with holiness. Furthermore, as the interpreter intimated when discussing the differences between Buddhism and Christianity, Rodrigues had seen Ferreira as his “Buddha”, or what he could “aspire” to become. When this is ripped away from him—as he says when he arrives in Japan—the “walls of the church have fallen down...”
The more I watch Silence, the more I come to sympathize with Kichijiro’s situation, and what he represents for Rodrigues—the true exemplification of his religion. When Rodrigues and Garupe first meet Kichijiro, they are literally looking down on him; he is a drunk and fervently denies he is a Christian. Garupe expresses his reluctance to trust Kichijiro; Rodrigues offers that it was men like Kichijiro who needed Christ’s forgiveness in the first place, but does so only as hollow rhetoric, lacking the experience to truly understand what this means. Kichijiro’s story is tragic—his family was martyred in front of him because only he would trample on the fumi-e (a metal plaque of Christian imagery) and deny his faith. After Rodrigues and Garupe split up in their search for Ferreira, Rodrigues crosses paths with Kichijiro on Gotō Island, and it becomes clear that Kichijiro conspired to betray Rodrigues to the inquisition to the symbolic tune of three-hundred pieces of silver. While Rodrigues is incarcerated, Kichijiro has the nerve to ask the priest to hear his confession, and Rodrigues contemplates, “How could God forgive a wretch like this?” But as Rodrigues observed prior to this betrayal, it was from Kichijiro who he felt the greatest need for forgiveness, and the person who truly needs forgiveness is a sinner, not one who is without sin. The people of Tomogi village are exceedingly selfless, but largely interpret their faith in “Deusu” from a Japanese mindset, believing that they would dishonor Jesus by trampling, and are willing to sacrifice themselves in the name of said honor. Kichijiro has traveled abroad—even if only to escape persecution—and his sense of guilt and shame speaks to the true paradox of humanity that necessitates forgiveness. We are all born sinners, yet we all desire to be good. It is this ubiquitous conflict that brings suffering—a tenet shared both by Christianity and Buddhism. In the end, it is not Rodrigues’ mission to reclaim Ferreira that reforges his faith, but his shared existential suffering with Kichijiro.
Even comparatively early into Rodrigues’ quest—like when he finds himself alone on Gotō Island—he begins to doubt the existence of God because of His perceived silence, hence the film’s title. Silence begins in darkness with the sounds of crickets chirping, and ends the same way. These “nature” sounds seem to speak more for the defense of Buddhism—honoring the created and material world in lieu of faith in an abstract, intangible deity—and Rodrigues’ exposure to this foreign way of thinking always threatens to subvert his seemingly adamantine convictions. It is almost a cliché to say that God works in mysterious ways, but this is true in Silence, and how Rodrigues to come to terms with his pride and embracing what it means to truly feel the presence of God in his life.
Although parallels are drawn between Rodrigues and the denial of Christ by the Apostle Peter—there is even a rooster crowing three times as dawn breaks when the last priest in Japan apostatizes—a group of children later mock him as “Apostle Paul”. In some ways, Rodrigues shares similarities with the “Apostle of the Gentiles”, formerly known as Saul of Tarsus. For the purposes of Silence, it is especially profound that God reveals himself to Rodrigues in his moment of crisis, forever altering his perception of faith. His whole journey through Japan is essentially his “Road to Damascus”, but until that revelation comes, Rodrigues is circling the void of existential despair. I have known these feelings myself, and this is why I identify so strongly with Silence. I recall a time when I was in great crisis where I called out for God to flee from my soul—and felt that he did, not out of malice but to show me his existence by virtue of its absence. It was a moment where I became wholly convinced of the existence of God. This is why I understand that when Rodrigues hears the voice of God in this darkest hour, it is that same kind of revelation that many of us experience, but not all of us recognize it for what it is. Much has been said about the “silence” of God in everything from cinema, philosophy, poetry, and more. What Silence offers—and asks that we bring ourselves to acknowledge as it is revealed to us—is that silence is not absence.