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God speaks, we listen

“To ‘listen to God,’ then, is not merely to hear God. It also requires that we pay attention to God’s words and ‘treasure all these things and ponder them in our heart’ (cf. Luke 2:19, 51). Moreover, God’s call does not always come to us in words; indeed, this would be the exception, rather than the rule. God speaks to us especially through events.”

Okumura, Augustine Ichiro. Awakening to Prayer. Translated by Theresa Kazue Hiraki and Albert Masaru Yamato. Washington, DC: ICS Publications, Institute of Carmelite Studies, 1994, p. 36.

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silence, worship, and noise

"Silence is an attitude of the soul. It cannot be decreed without appearing overrated, empty, and artificial. In the Church’s liturgies, silence cannot be a pause between two rituals; silence itself is fully a ritual, it envelops everything. Silence is the fabric from which all our liturgies must be cut. Nothing in them should interrupt the silent atmosphere that is its natural setting.

“Now, celebrations become tiring because they unfold in noisy chattering.” Thought 250.

Sarah, Robert Cardinal with Nicolas Diat. The Power of Silence Against the Dictatorship of Noise. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2017, p. 130.

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including the Church triumphant

“We are to be informed by the life, teaching, death and resurrection of Jesus; by the leading of the Spirit; by the wisdom we find in scripture; by the fact of our baptism and all that it means; by the sense of God’s presence and guidance through prayer; and by the fellowship of other Christians, both our contemporaries and those of other ages whose lives and writings are ours to use as wise guides. … Part of the art of being a Christian is learning to be sensitive to all of them, and to weigh what we think we are hearing from one quarter alongside what is being said in another.”

Wright, Tom. Simply Christian. London: SPCK, 2006, p. 191.

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sabbath purpose

“The Genesis account provides a glimpse of God’s view of biblical shalom, in which the world will be made right as God intended it to be. Observation of the sabbath is one of the mechanisms God uses as a part of the process of restoring shalom.”

Cannon, Mae Elise. Just Spirituality: How Faith Practices Fuel Social Action. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2013, p. 129.

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deeper than experience

“Mysticism is a story that begins in silence and only takes on the form of language and narrative after the fact. We say that mysticism involves experience: the experience of union with God, or of the presence of God, or something as extraordinary as Teresa’s encounter with the angel, or Merton’s street corner lovefest. But experience is not the entire story, either. The problem with experience is that it can be driven by the human ego, a self-directed phenomenon that can too easily become self-absorbed. Mysticism affirms the mystery of God more than mere experience. Sometimes God chooses to encounter us deep beneath the horizon of our awareness. That’s one of many reasons why we call this type of spirituality ‘mysticism’–it ushers us into mystery, deeper than what our minds or even our hearts can comprehend.”

McColman, Carl. The New Big Book of Christian Mysticism: an Essential Guide to Contemplative Spirituality. Minneapolis: Broadleaf Books, 2023, pp. 15-16.

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Christian silence

“The silence that brings us close to God is always a respectful silence, a silence of adoration, a silence of filial love. It is never a trivial silence.”

Sarah, Robert Cardinal with Nicolas Diat. The Power of Silence Against the Dictatorship of Noise. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2017, p. 206.

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divine presence

“Since the reigning presence of God is within us, any approach to exploring the mystical life will naturally include exercises and practices such as meditation and contemplation, intended to help us become more open to the hidden (mystical) presence of God within. As worthy as such practices are by themselves they are incomplete. Our journey to divine union also needs to be nourished by participation in some sort of community of fellow seekers who are trying, as best they can, to figure out what living and following Jesus is all about.”

McColman, Carl. The New Big Book of Christian Mysticism: an Essential Guide to Contemplative Spirituality. Minneapolis: Broadleaf Books, 2023, p. 203.

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true character of silence

“Silence does not mean dumbness, as speech does not mean chatter. Dumbness does not create solitude and chatter does not create fellowship.”

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Life Together. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1954, p. 78. (original German pub in 1939)

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suffering and power

“Now the plain truth is that he who has never been tried by suffering and has never experienced the power of the Word of God to give strength, cannot know the true purport of this petition [i.e., “Give us this day our daily bread”]. Such comfort cannot appeal to him, for he has known and tasted only his own and other creatures’ comfort and aid. He has never drunk a cup of woe to the dregs and been disconsolate.”

Luther, Martin. “An Exposition of the Lord’s Prayer for Simple Laymen” (1519) Luther’s Works Vol. 42. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969, page 53.

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pregnant silence

"At first the quiet may feel like just another place of emptiness. We may even feel a sense of dread or fear that we are going to be judged or punished for parts of ourselves we have now brought into the light of day.

“But if we stay in this moment, eventually – like Elijah – we begin to notice that this silence is qualitatively different from the emptiness we experienced before. The silence that comes after the chaos is pregnant with the presence of God.”

Barton, Ruth Haley. Invitation to Solitude and Silence: Experiencing God’s Transforming Presence. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004, p. 110.