Posted on by Kurt Bodling

stillness empowers us

“At the Hermitage we use an axiom that remains true: if you really want to do ministry well, then be content with stillness. It is only in the power of finding the Spirit in stillness that our ministry can really have the power of the Spirit in it at all. Plus, we recognize that behind every successful active ministry, there is usually a group of contemplative people praying in stillness for its success.”

Talbot, John Michael. The Universal Monk: The Way of the New Monastics. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2011, pp. 67-68.

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contemplation and action

“No man who ignores the rights and needs of others can hope to walk in the light of contemplation, because his way has turned aside from truth, from compassion and therefore from God. … To do the work carefully and well, with love and respect for the nature of my task and with due attention to its purpose, is to unite myself to God’s will in my work.” (p. 18-19)

Merton, Thomas. New Seeds of Contemplation. Introduction by Sue Monk Kidd. New York: New Directions Books, 2007, ©1961.

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inner and outer silence

“Interior silence is the end of judgments, passions, and desires. Once we have acquired interior silence, we can transport it within us into the world and pray everywhere. But just as interior asceticism cannot be obtained without concrete mortifications, it is absurd to speak about interior silence without exterior silence.

“Within silence there is a demand made on each one of us. Man controls his hours of activity if he knows how to enter into silence. The life of silence must be able to precede the active life.”

Robert Cardinal Sarah, The Power of Silence Against the Dictatorship of Noise. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2017), page 32

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being before doing

“In his Apostolic Letter Novo millennio ineunte, John Paul II writes: ‘It is important however that what we propose, with the help of God, should be profoundly rooted in contemplation and prayer. Ours is a time for continual movement which often leads to restlessness, with the risk of “doing for the sake of doing”. We must resist the temptation by trying “to be” before trying “to do”.’ This is the innermost, unchangeable desire of a monk. But it happens also to be the deepest aspiration of every person who seeks the Eternal One. For man can encounter God in truth only in silence and solitude, both interior and exterior.” Robert Cardinal Sarah, The Power of Silence Against the Dictatorship of Noise. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2017), page 28

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center of action and contemplation

“In reality, Jesus seems to sketch out the outlines of a personal spiritual pedagogy: we should always make sure to be Mary before becoming Martha. Otherwise, we run the risk of becoming literally bogged down in activism and agitation, the unpleasant consequences of which emerge in the Gospel account: panic, fear of working without help, an inattentive interior attitude, annoyance like Martha’s toward her sister, the feeling that God is leaving us alone without intervening effectively.” Robert Cardinal Sarah, The Power of Silence Against the Dictatorship of Noise. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2017), page 28

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The Little Brothers of Jesus

“The followers of Charles de Foucauld have no special pastoral task allotted to them. They do not argue with people, try to convince them, try to convert them, try to make them amend their lives. They seek only to be with them, to share their lives, their poverty, their sufferings, their problems, their ideals: but to be with them in a special way. As members of Christ, they are Christ. And where they are present, Christ is present. Where He is present, He acts. Their being, their presence, is then active, dynamic. It is the leaven hidden in the measure of meal. This of course is a strictly contemplative view of the Christian life, and unless it implies a complete sacrifice of oneself, of all one’s ambitions and worldly desires, it cannot be effective. But once it is properly understood, it is utterly simple. So much so, that it is terrible in its simplicity. It is the simplicity of the Gospel itself.”

The Vatican has announced that Charles de Foucauld will be canonized.


Merton, Thomas. The Inner Experience: Notes on Contemplation. Edited and with an Introduction by William H. Shannon. (NY: HarperOne, 2003), page 144. [this text written in 1959]

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action and contemplation

From a treatise on John by Saint Augustine, bishop

“The Church recognizes two kinds of life as having been commended to her by God. One is a life of faith, the other a life of vision; one is a life passed on pilgrimage in time, the other in a dwelling place in eternity; one is a life of toil, the other of repose; one is spent on the road, the other in our homeland; one is active, involving labor, the other contemplative, the reward of labor.

“The first kind of life is symbolized by the apostle Peter, the second by John. All of the first life is lived in this world, and it will come to an end with this world. The second life will be imperfect till the end of this world, but it will have no end in the next world. And so Christ says to Peter: Follow me; but of John he says: If I wish him to remain until I come, what is that to you? Your duty is to follow me.“

(Augustine, Tract. 124, 5, 7: CCL 36, 685-687)