A few days after Pope Francis promulgated the Bull Misericordiae vultus, the Jubilee of Mercy, I, like many others, was shocked to learn of the 400 Libyan migrants who died off the coast of Italy.

The fact that most of the dead Africans are usually young people and children adds, without a doubt, intensity to the pain, without forgetting the elderly who are also frequently embarked on these forced adventures of no return. The pain is also intertwined with the indignation aroused by the terrible presence of mafias exploiting the poor in their desperate attempts to reach the coasts of Europe. If to the cruelty of the mafias is added the strafing of the Italian navy by the Libyan coastal boats to seize the vessels, the bloodiest brushstrokes on this pathetic picture culminate.

If "mercy" evokes the resonance that the misery of others arouses in the heart, in a subculture of noise and external stimuli, I see an increasing need to recover the meaning of eloquent silences.

When, on May 8, 1919, the Australian journalist and soldier Edward George Honey, already living in London, proposed to keep 2 minutes of silence at 11:00 a.m. on November 11 as a tribute to those who died during the war, he thought it was necessary to express compassion towards the dead, since the end of the armed conflict highlighted more joy than mourning. As a counterpoint to the frequent post-war dances enlivened by foxtrots or charlestones of that second "Belle Époque", the ex-combatant journalist spread the alternative of the eloquent silence, counterpoint and peculiar evocative cry of the countless dead.

Honey's proposal was accepted by King George V, and European culture has welcomed this gesture ever since, which has been repeated uninterruptedly until now.

During this university semester , I have already been able to share with the students (more than a hundred at group) this experience that for most of them is new, at least as a personal experience. The Paris attack or the aviation accident in France have been the protagonists of the silences prior to Wednesday, the 15th, when we paid homage to the 400 Africans. When introducing it, I always try to extend the memory to the victims of the Islamic State, the victims of famine or the more than 100,000 unborn children due to the permissive and scandalous abortion in Spain.

In that dense minute, as I gaze at the crucifix (the students know that this is my contribution to the silent gesture), I remember these words of Romano Guardini that perhaps will help young people understand why they feel so challenged to be silent and perceive only those heartbeats that compassionately strike their consciences: "It is in silence that great events take place. Not in the tumultuous waste of external events, but in the august clarity of inner vision, in the stealthy movement of decisions, in hidden sacrifice and self-denial; that is, when the heart, touched by love, summons the freedom of the spirit to enter into action, and its bosom is fertilized to bear fruit. The silent powers are the authentically creative ones" (R. Guardini: "The Lord", Madrid, 2002, p.45).

I think that the call of Pope Francis for promote works of mercy during the next Jubilee may find an echo in so many university consciences capable of making minutes of silence to wake up in the face of the widespread globalization of indifference, including that of the media, which has given so little space to the last massive shipwreck off the coast of Italy.