In the life of the Curé of Ars, Jean Marie Vianney, there is a story of an old peasant who used to spend hours and hours sitting in the chapel motionless, doing nothing. The priest said to him, “What are you doing all these hours?” The old peasant answered, I look at him, be looks at me, and we are happy.” This can be reached only if we learn a certain amount of silence. Begin with the silence of the lips, with the silence of the emotions, the silence of the mind, the silence of the body. But it would be a mistake to imagine that we can start at the highest end, with the silence of the heart and the mind. We must start by silencing our lips, by silencing heart and our body in the sense of learning to keep still, to let still, to let tenseness go, not to fall into daydreaming and slackness, but, to use the formula of one of our Russian saints, to be like a violin string, wound in such a way that it can give the right note, neither wound too much to the breaking point, nor too little so that it only buzzes. And from then onward we must learn to listen to silence, to be absolutely quiet, and we may, more often than we imagine, discover that the words of the Book of Revelation come true: “I stand at the door and knock.”
This is an excerpt from a book Beginning to Pray by Archbishop Anthony Bloom. If you would like to buy this book please click here.