Your vital energy is returning to the Source
Like a flowing stream returning to ocean.
Heaven is our Father, Earth is our Mother.
All people are our brothers and sisters
And all things are our companions.
In this gentle peaceful journey,
You are forming one body with heaven and earth.
Entrust yourself in the transforming
and nourishing care of the Cosmos.
Listen to the voice of love in silence.
You have heard the Way;
Return Home in Peace.
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.