There are some paragraphs in the exhortation Verbum Domini that are precisely dedicated to the centrality of the Word which God freely addressed in various ways in the cosmos, and specifically and directly to men (VD 21-24). It is not just an initiative that goes in and out of an intimate secret of God and is expanding everywhere, but a revelation which calls -just in the intention of God Himself revealing- in a dialogue, a communion, a response, a mutual trust.

The existence of creation and creatures is the result of omnipotent and effective word of God. In these situations God has placed the inherent dynamism of its own turn: it made the universe and every man recipients of his creative word. At the same time He placed the dynamic response, the appeal to dialogue. "Every man seems to be the addressee of the Word, called and asked to enter the dialogue of love with a free replay [...]. Man is created in the Word and lives in it, he can’t understand himself unless he is open to this dialogue"(VD 22).

In other words, without a dialogue’s life, and in trusting relationship with God, man will neither understand himself, nor he will understand who God is for him and how to relate to him. For this reason the "Logos made flesh" (Jn 1,14) is the amount of interpretation of the nature of man, as the fullness of what God wants to say, till to a very concrete thing, just as is the incarnation of the Word (his Word).

It is the human form more open and available to the true identity of the man, the summit toward which humanity in front of an interpellant and revealer God. For this reason, the Gaudium et Spes says, "only in the mystery of the Word made flesh illuminates the mystery of man ... [Because] reveals man to himself and makes noticed his supreme calling"(GS 22).

From this point of view, when we speak of God's word, to stay to the true theological implications that this expression means, we must go beyond the book of the Bible, which actually collects in part (and only in part) as the men were able to store and transmit. This is: to seize under the tracks of the writing, and through this window that reflects consciousness and human interpretation, the dialogue that precedes and goes beyond, in an eternal efficient present. It is the dialogue that leads to hope, "the name we give to the disproportion between what is promised to us and what we have in his hands. But what has promised to keep us alive".

The Jewish mentality has rightly maintained that surplus through the use of the word dabar, which means not only the word of God and what he says, but much more. In this word is included its own identity of an effective speaker, his interior vitality and power: he says, and realizes what he has said, he decided to implement voice as the expression says. "One of the images of paradise offered by rabbinical homiletic is that of a Beth midrash, a house of study where the teachers will study the Torah with God".

Just we have to think to the incipit of creation: "God said, ‘Let be light!’. And there was light "(Gen 1:2). This inseparable presence of word and effect leads to understand how in the same reality, "established" by the creative word is intrinsic the relational strength, the call for dialogue, the attraction towards the One who gave shape to be with "creating".

God himself is compromised in this report, so interwoven that not even he can escape no longer the dialogue: He puts himself in the position of having to listen to and accept the response "in dialogue" with his creatures. If from within of man comes the need to enter into dialogue with the One who created him as "dialoguing" in essence, when this essential structure takes development, God himself is looking forward to listening and responding, weaving and feeding for communion, as indicated by the reflection of the Alexandrian Jew author of the book of Wisdom (Wis 6.12 to 16).

Paragraph 23 of the Verbum Domini states: "In dialogue with God we understand ourselves and we find an answer to the deepest questions that dwell in our hearts." God gives ear and listens (Mal 4:16), He goes down to see and know suffering and anguish (Ex 3.7 to 8), He receives the solitary appeals of Agar and the intimate anguish of Abraham (Gen 16.7, 21.14 -20), intercepts the desire to die of Elijah (1 Kings 19:4) and the solemn prayer of Solomon (1 Kings 8.27 to 53). We could go on in these examples of serious and attentive listening by God, not only of the entreaties of the people of Israel, but any other people.

For this reason the text adds: "So it is crucial, on the point of view of the pastoral, presenting the word of God in his ability to communicate with the problems that man faces in everyday life [...]. We must use every effort to show the word of God as an opening to his problems as a response to their questions, a widening of its values and is also a satisfaction to their aspirations "(VD 23).

A special form of the response of God, mixed with our response, we have in the Psalms and the prayers of praise or entreaty that are in the Bible. These words aren’t only of God's revelation, but also the result of the inspiration of the Spirit of truth and light, but also word that God gives us to respond to Him. "He gives us the words with which we can turn to Him, to bring our lives in the interview in front of him, so transforming the life itself into a movement toward God" (VD 24). Our habit of "acting" the Psalms may sometimes consider them only as a formulas to be recited and not as God's revelation and interpretation of our problems and our response by Him suggested, that explains and calls, pleading and praising.

Appropriately, the exhortation insists on this point: "In this way the word that man speaks to God also becomes the Word of God, confirming the dialogic character of the whole Christian revelation, and the entire existence of man becomes a dialogue with God speaking and listening, who calls and mobilizes the life. The word of God reveals that all human life here is under the divine call" (VD 24).

One of the nodes in the discourse on the revelation of God and his call for dialogue is represented by experiences in which God doesn’t seem to answer, he remains silent, despite pleas and complaints. Certainly it is a silence that expresses transcendence and non-manipulability. There is a silence of adoration and fear to grow, there is a silence of assimilation, decantation, essentiality, "Shut up, or tell something more important than the silence," said a father of the desert.

Speaking with God is not simply to say something, repeating formulas and gestures, that God would provide a satisfactory response. Even the question of God goes before us and we often can’t find answer. As the one made in its beginning, "Adam where are you?" (Gen3,9). In this question is an invitation to every human being to understand oneself, to clarify the undertaken processes, to come out of hiding for fear, perhaps out of laziness or because you have an image of God, apparently frozen by his real plans.

It is told of Rabbi Shneur Zalman -the Rabbi of Russia- that while is in prison for libel, one day the captain of the guard entered into his cell and began to converse with him, seeking clarification on the question that God gives to Adam: "Where are you?" (Gen 3,9). The wise teacher asks to the guard: "Do you believe that Scripture is eternal and embraces all ages, all generations and all individuals?". "Yes, I believe," he said. "Well," replied the tzaddik (the righteous), at any time God calls upon all men: Where are you in your world? Many of the assigned days and years for you have passed. In the meantime you how far you've come to your world? God says, for example: is already forty-six years that you are alive. Where are you?". The guard felt his heart trembling. The rabbi had presented another perspective, his expectations were certainly not those having to question about his actions and thought he'd created. The answer was to tell him that God speaks to him, asking: "Where are you?".

The exhortation Verbum Domini seems to be particularly attentive to the issue of the silence of God, of which perhaps more than at other times we suffer today. In fact, it conjures up several times, first in a Christological key, especially where it speaks of the "Paschal Mystery." "Here we are faced with the ‘Word of the cross’ (1Cor 1,18). The Word falls silent, it becomes dead silence, because it is ‘said’ to be silent, not holding back anything that we had to communicate [...]. God's freedom and human freedom met definitively in his crucified flesh, in an indissoluble bond, valid for ever" (VD 12).

A second reference is found in 21th paragraph, which seeks to apply the experience of Christ in our experience. In a few lines seven times used the word silence, to indicate (implicitly) concern and sorrow searching for light and explanation. "This experience of Jesus is indicative of the situation of the man who, having heard and recognized the word of God, must also be measured by his silence. [...]. In these dark moments, he speaks in the mystery of his silence. It is an experience lived by so many saints and mystics, and that even today enter in the path of many believers" (VD 21).

Benedict XVI has developed this argument in his Homilies, because he feels the torment of our culture and our tragic events, such as the Holocaust. The simplicity of paragraph 21 indicates his respect and his theology: it stops at the threshold of the mystery of the Word par excellence, becomes mute and responds with horror to the silence and the cry: "Therefore the dynamics of Christian Revelation, the silence is as an important expression of God's word "(VD 21). Silence is also an indispensable element for receiving the Word and let you realize: This is dealt with in paragraph 66 dedicated to the relationship between "Word and Silence", "by which, with the help of the Holy Spirit, the Word of God is grasped by the heart."

The communication of God, beside himself, has passed and goes for a creative, dynamic, composite way, made up of words and silences, events and memories, responses and distances. God surprises, he's semper maior. But he came close, wayfarer with us wayfarers, beggar with us beggars, flesh of our flesh, face in our faces. He danced in the globe creating and decorating the cosmos, he danced around the nations and to every single person with the offer of dialogue and her passion for loyalty in love.

"The Christian tradition has often placed in parallel with the divine Word made flesh with the Word made book" (Message of the Synod, 5). This "bodily" dimension enhances the dialogic dimension: they do bold experience and inspiring for a near revelation of our God "Silence helps you become faint light, which is not intended to stifle the dark, but invited him to become light too".