June 1988 (Vol. I, No. 6)

Nan Merrill

Summer greetings to all friends of Silence! May each one of you enjoy a time of recreation ... re-creation ... this season both outwardly and inwardly. And, what season of Silence are you experiencing in your prayer life? Winter Solstice sometimes seems like a deep abyss where the Word dwells in us unspoken ... Spring Silence brings an expectancy, an active waiting, for the Word in us ... in Summer Silence, the Word wells up -- growing in us, challenging us, changing us, nurturing us into new life, into new creations ... while Autumn Silence seems the time to reap the harvest of the Word in us, to reflect on the fruits the Word has borne. It seems good to share our reflections and experiences of the Silence that we might come to know one another and grow in Silence together.

We must try to penetrate our most secret self

Teilhard de Chardin | June 1988 (Vol. I, No. 6)

Teilhard de Chardin's knowledge of himself in the Silence is powerfully described in the DIVINE MILIEU:

We must try to penetrate our most secret self, and examine our being from all sides. Let us try, patiently, to perceive the ocean of forces to which we are subjected and in which our growth is, as it were, steeped ... And so, for the first time in my life perhaps (although I am supposed to meditate every day!), I took the lamp and, leaving the zone of everyday occupations and relationships where everything seems clear, I went down into my inmost self, to the deep abyss whence I feel dimly that my power of action emanates. But as I moved further and further away from the conventual, I became aware that I was losing contact with myself. At each step of the descent, a new person was disclosed within me of whose name I was no longer sure, and who no longer obeyed me. And when I had to stop my exploration because the path faded from beneath my steps, I found a bottomless abyss at my feet ... and, if someone saved me, it was hearing the voice of the Gospel speaking to me from the depth of the night: ego sum, noli timere ... It is I, be not afraid!

~ from DIVINE MILIEU by Teilhard de Chardin

The experience of prayer

John Main | June 1988 (Vol. I, No. 6)

The experience of prayer is the experience of coming into full union with the energy that created the universe. What Christianity has to proclaim to the world is that that energy is LOVE and it is the well-spring out of which all creation flows. It is the well-spring that gives each one of us the creative power to be the person we are called to be -- a person rooted and formed in love.

~ from MOMENT OF CHRIST: THE PATH OF MEDITATION by John Main

The person who loves never abandons contemplation

Hans Urs von Balthasar | June 1988 (Vol. I, No. 6)

The person who loves never abandons contemplation. On the contrary, s/he alone thirsts for it in the right spirit ... God gives Love to those in prayer, and the more s/he loves others, the better s/he can understand. Being filled with God's love, one is capable of a new love for one another -- a joyful and self-forgetting love. Love brings contemplation itself into the mystery of change. It is no longer a neutral point from which the transformations of love are beheld; it is carried away in the flood of the love which is ever the same and ever new, forever changing.

~ Hans Urs Von Balthasar

Good is holy silence

Unknown | June 1988 (Vol. I, No. 6)

Good is holy silence and giving of holiday to every sense.

~ Egyptian 350 B.C.

Silence is the home of the word

Henri Nouwen | June 1988 (Vol. I, No. 6)

Silence is the home of the word. Silence gives strength and fruitfulness to the word. We can even say that words are meant to disclose the mystery of the silence from which they come ... Words can only create communion and thus new life when they embody the silence from which they emerge ... Thus silence is the mystery of the future world. It keeps us pilgrims and prevents us from becoming entangled in the cares of this age. It guards the fire of the Holy Spirit who dwells within us. It allows us to speak a word that participates in the creative and recreative power of God's own Word.

~ from THE WAY OF THE HEART by Henri Nouwen

A word to the big heart from one of its own little hearts

George MacDonald | June 1988 (Vol. I, No. 6)

When one says to the great Thinker: "Here is one of your thoughts: I am thinking it now," that is a prayer -- a word to the big heart from one of its own little hearts.

~ George MacDonald

Having remained silent

Arsenius | June 1988 (Vol. I, No. 6)

"I have often repented of having spoken ... but never of having remained silent."

~ Arsenius

To pray is never to get over the wonder of being born

Edward J. Farrell | June 1988 (Vol. I, No. 6)

To pray is never to get over the wonder of being born, of being alive. To pray is to live in the profound gratitude that no matter what happens, we're ahead. To pray is to be in reverence, in awe, in joy with some moment of each day. There are no perfect days, but there is a beautiful moment in each day that draws us into prayer ... consciously or unconsciously.

~ from GATHERING THE FRAGMENTS by Edward J. Farrell

O Lord, the Author and Persuador of peace

Ludovicus Vives | June 1988 (Vol. I, No. 6)

O Lord, the Author and Persuador of peace, love and goodwill, soften hearts that are hard and steely ... warm hearts frozen by fear, that we may wish well to one another, and may be true followers of the Way of Love. And give us grace even now to show forth that heavenly life, wherein fear does not abide -- but peace and love on all hands, one toward another. Amen.

~ Ludovicus Vives - 16th century