Silence (Part 2) | In Silence you will Find God
What one practice of the Christian life is the best practice? By this question, I am asking what is the best means to arrive at Christian perfection? If I may, I would like to answer this question by proposing the example of some brothers in the deserts of early Christian Egypt.
Someone related that three spiritual brothers, philoponoi, became monks. The first chose to bring peace to those who were fighting, according to what is proclaimed in Scripture: Blessed are the peacemakers (Mt 5:9). The second chose to visit the sick (Mt 25:36), while the third went away to live a life of contemplative quiet in the desert (cf. Mk 1:35). Although the first labored mightily to resolve conflicts between people, he was unable to remedy all of them. Discouraged, he went to see the one who was ministering to the sick; he found him dispirited and not even close to having fulfilled the commandment (cf. Mt 25:36). The two of them agreed: they went to see the hermit, told him their sorrows, and urged him to tell them what he had accomplished.
After remaining silent a short while, the hermit put water in a basin and said to them, "observe the water". It was disturbed. A short time later he again said to them, "Observe that the water is now calm". When they looked closely at the water, they observed their own faces as if looking in a mirror. Finally he said to them, "It is the same with someone in the midst of people. On account of disturbances, he does not see his own sins, but when he has contemplative quiet, especially in the desert, then he sees his own defects". (Becoming Fire, Through the Year with the Desert Fathers and Mothers, ed. Tim Vivian, January 1).
In the contemplative quiet, the three brothers came face to face with themselves in self-knowledge. The quiet allowed their souls like the water in the basin to settle in peace. For all of us, silence is beneficial. It leads us to a humble knowing of ourselves - the soul becomes a mirror. In this mirror there is something more to see than our own defects. In the depths of the soul we come to see the image of God, the face of Christ as we arrive at purity of heart. To arrive at this condition we need silence, even though it might be hard to remain in that quiet. There are many things that we could try to do in order to arrive at Christian perfection. This episode from the deserts of Egypt displays the value of setting aside all activity in order to gaze quietly into our souls. They are vessels (although earthen) of grace, which contain the presence of God and his gifts.
In this article we return to the practice of silence in Carmelite Life. We will give some practical directives for silence and the "why?" behind this pillar of the Rule.
Difficulties with Silence
But before we do that, another comment on the difficulty of silence. A frustration often recorded in the lives of the desert fathers and mothers is the reality of going into the desert to find God, and instead finding one's self only. For a moment, imagine the disappointment of someone setting out on the way of prayer in order to move beyond themselves so as to seek "higher things"; and, rather than finding peaceful interior prayer and the presence of God, they only arrive at the place where the journey first started - self! Perhaps, you have experienced something like this. First of all, don't be discouraged. Stick with the silence and you will find God in the end, along with the peace of his presence. Peace is only found in relationship to God, and prayer is that relationship - a relationship that can only be cultivated and enjoyed in silence. As St. Albert explains in the Rule: "Silence is the cultivation of justice…" That is, in silence we work towards right relationship with God, which is the essence of holiness, and of being just. Silence allows us to just be before God!
As for the difficulty of quiet, sometimes we avoid solitude precisely for the reason mentioned above: we are afraid of what we might find within the deeps of our hearts… difficulties and disturbances of all kinds, the presence of things we just do not want to admit as actually present. Yet, it is entering into these murky waters that we will acquire the necessary purity of heart to see God. Silence helps all the dust within the vessel of the soul to settle. Only then do the waters become still enough for us to see the image of God reflected in our souls as in a bright mirror.
Night Silence and Day Silence
Now, for what the Rule of Carmel has to say about the forms of silence in our way of life.
Albert's directive on silence is twofold, concerning what is called the night silence and the day silence. Yes, we are to attempt a quiet which lasts all day and all night! We begin with the first period designated as the great silence:
"Therefore, we direct that you keep silence from after compline until prime of the following day." (Rule of St. Albert)
This is a description of how the night silence is to be undertaken. This is a privileged period in the twenty-four hours of a Carmelite day, which is why the adjective "great" is applied to this time of night silence. It is a time for retirement in the cell, the reading of Sacred Scripture, keeping vigil, and rest. The silence enjoined upon the religious community in this period is necessarily more strict.
For your own purposes, it might be worth thinking about how you might create a space where you can go apart so as to enter into the great silence. Find a little desert for yourself in your home or some-place else where you can be alone in solitude… like taking a walk by yourself without the company of any devices. It is important to be disconnected at times. Secondly, it might also be valuable to create a rule of silence in your own routine - to decide when everything is powered off; when, how, and where you take care of business; regulating your encounters with other people; discerning when contact with the world is necessary. Such practices will help you to not only engage God in prayer, but it will also help you to interact with other people in your life. Ultimately, it will help you to live intentionally, in a refusal to be driven by all the stimuli which surround us in our environments. After some silence and solitude, you will be more ready to jump back into all the activity of life with greater energy and focus.
The Rule now proceeds to speak of the silence which is kept during the day:
"At other times, however, although you need not observe silence so strictly, you should nevertheless be all the more careful to avoid much talking…" (Rule of St. Albert)
While the day silence is less strict, we must first of all note that what is implicit in this precept is that silence is to be kept "night and day", that is, continually! The allowance for speech during the day is not simply a relaxation of the silence. Speaking is permitted, but it must be measured:
"Let each one, therefore, measure his words and keep a tight rein on his tongue…" (Rule of St. Albert)
Notice the character of monastic speech: it is concise, to the point, and not idle. Even at times designated for recreation, speech must never devolve into idle chit-chat. At recreation, we speak not just to relieve ourselves in an overflowing torrent of words, but to re-create just as God created all things by speaking his Word in the beginning (cf. Gn 1; Jn 1). Idle talk can lead to all kinds of trouble. As the letter of St. James tells us: the tongue, although a small member of the human body, can start great fires and possesses the potential of becoming a world of sin. Other reasons for speech in the Christian life would be to praise God, and to proclaim the Gospel - just to say the name Jesus is to glorify God! The Rule provides much material for our own discernment in the use of the spoken word in our own lives, especially in the contemporary culture of social media. Enough said… Now another question…
Why all the Silence?
At this point, you might be asking: "Why all this talk about silence?" It's a good question. Why spend so many words on this exercise of Carmelite life? The rationale for all this silence is twofold just like the regulation of silence in a Carmelite day is twofold.
The first reason: silence is necessary for acquiring purity of heart. The universal testimony of Scripture provides ample evidence of the evil caused by harmful speech from the confusion of tongues at the tower of Babel in Genesis to the blasphemies of the beast and his followers in the Book of Revelation. The dangers of the tongue are enumerated by St. James:
So the tongue is only a tiny part of the body, but its boasts are great. Think how small a flame can set fire to a huge forest; The tongue is a flame too. Among all the parts of the body, the tongue is a whole wicked world: it infects the whole body; catching fire itself from hell, it sets fire to the whole wheel of creation. Wild animals and birds, reptiles and fish of every kind can all be tamed, and have been tamed, by humans; but nobody can tame the tongue—it is a pest that will not keep still, full of deadly poison. (Jm 3:5-8)
Paul the Apostle enjoins silence upon the Thessalonians because there are persons within their number who are acting as "busybodies" and "living in idleness…and not doing any work" (2 Th 3:11). The Rule of St. Albert, presenting proof from both Scripture and lived experience, explains:
Where there is much talk sin will not be lacking; and he who is careless in speech will come to harm; and elsewhere, he who uses many words injures his soul…"
The remedy provided by Carmel's Rule for all this harm is silence! Within text of the Rule of St. Albert, there is a reminder of coming judgement on the last day - we will have to render an account "for every idle word" that is spoken - what has been called by Raniero Cardinal Cantalamessa: "the word without effect", those words which have nothing to do with God or the coming of his kingdom in the person of his Son, Jesus Christ.
The evil caused by speech can prove fatal (causing spiritual death), causing a fall in the spiritual life that is irreparable. Albert's exhortation is that we must "watch our ways", and to "try attentively and carefully to practice silence". The first task in the attainment of purity of heart is to free ourselves from all actual sin. Silence and its practice has as its goal this very freedom that we might become receptive to the gift of God, which is his Word. We exchange the multiplicity of all our words for this one Word, his Son.
The second reason: silence is the condition for receiving the gift of God - his Eternal Word. Scripture points to the reality that man stands above the rest of creation because he was created in the image and likeness of God. The Father created all things with his Eternal Word. God spoke and all creation came into being from nothing.
The Book of Genesis describes man's unique place and role among other creatures:
…God said, ‘Let us make man in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves, and let them be masters of the fish of the sea, the birds of heaven, the cattle, all the wild animals and all the creatures that creep along the ground.’ God created man in the image of himself, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them. (Gn 1:26-7)
The unique status of human creation is a preparation for the singular reality of the Incarnation, namely that God would become man. Two texts will help us to understand the importance of our humanity and its relationship with the Eternal Word of God made flesh. Our first text is from the apostle Paul who, in his letter to the Colossians, writes of Jesus the only Son of God:
He is the image of the unseen God, the first-born of all creation, for in him were created all things in heaven and on earth: everything visible and everything invisible, thrones, ruling forces, sovereignties, powers—all things were created through him and for him. (Col 1:15-16)
Our second text is from the Gospel of John in which it is proclaimed that:
In the beginning was the Word: the Word was with God and the Word was God. (Jn 1:1)
What this means is that the human person is an image of "the Image of God"… the Word made flesh. This truth has powerful implications for the faculty of human speech. The ability to speak, to communicate in a rational manner is a direct consequence of the fact that man and woman are created after the image of God. Our goal is to arrive at greater likeness to this image as our lives unfold.
The greatest gift of human life, in general and of Carmelite life in particular, is our capacity for God and his Word. God speaks to us and we can speak to him. Prayer, loving dialogue and communion with God leads man to a covenant relationship with the Creator (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, #'s 355-357). Our full capacity for the Word of God can only be arrived at through silence. Silence helps us to calmly look within to find the face of Jesus imprinted in the depths of our souls. There is no greater gift in silence than to find not ourselves, but the living God who dwells within us and is always speaking to us.