winter

The essence of silence is self-emptiness, docility, receptivity, detachment, desire, listening, communion. Every act of silence is a little Advent. A Luigi Giussaní sums it up, "Silence is not merely keeping quiet, but it is the attitude of one who lives standing before a 'You' who is presenting, entreating a 'you' who is present." Teresa of Avila refers to contemplative prayer as the "prayer of quiet." Such prayerful silence enhances our ability and eagerness to listen to our Beloved. In this silence, the one in love remains perfectly content just to behold the Beloved, gazing in a state of holy and tranquil abiding. Silence speaks to silence.

SILENCE was the first prayer I learned to trust when I began my visits to San Damiano. Only later did I begin to let the words in. The silence of the chapel at prayer was broken only by a habit of praise that I came to see was so primal it was not only human. It was — or it mimicked exactly — the essential utterance of existence. It rose from the raw passion which rules life, an urge which has no voice but craves articulation. This communal prayer voiced a harmony otherwise elusive in all of creation, yet thrumming in the monastic silence.

The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells the Great spirit, and that this center is really everywhere; it is within each of us.

We see the face of God daily, easily recognizable in a spectacular sunset or in a child's smile. And it also exists in less attractive presentations. Can we accept seeing God in the person of our "enemy"? If we can't, we are doomed to propagating lives of hatred and revenge. Only when we see the face of God in everyone and in all things will we be at peace within ourselves and, more importantly, enable peace to exist throughout the world.