The Sound of Silence
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.”
—Archbishop Anthony Bloom
Beginning to Pray
The world we live in is busy and loud. Silence is nearly impossible to find, let alone cultivate in our own inner selves. How to turn off the busyness of our thoughts and concerns? Yet in the Gospels we find that Jesus continually withdrew from people, daily life activities, and the demands of his ministry to be alone with the Father and pray. Jesus’ solitude and silence is a major theme in the Gospels. Solitude and silence ought to be disciplines we pursue. The archbishop’s counsel above is wise: start small—silence the lips first. Try for just a short time. Then work towards quieting the emotions, a little at a time. Grow in this practice, working slowly but deliberately from the outside in. Find greater peace in Christ as, piece by piece, you find peace of body, mind, and soul in Christ. —DH
—David Hoskins, Founder & Care Guide, Sanctuary Clinics