Solitude is a return to one's own self when the world has become filled with people and too much of a response to others. Solitude is as much an intrinsic desire in us as our gregariousness. Hermits, solitary thinkers, independent spirits, recluses, although often stigmatized in the modern world, are healthy expressions of our dialogue with ourself.
Wherever the Word is to be heard, it must occur in the stillness and in silence... There we can hear it and understand it correctly, in that state of unknowing. Where we know nothing, it becomes apparent and reveals Itself... People should be as free of their own knowledge as when they were not yet, letting God accomplish what God wills ... standing empty.