December 1988 (Vol. I, No. 11)

May the blessing of Advent be with each one of you during this Holyday season and all through the new year - 1989!

Advent is the season of the seed:
The seed, Christ said, is the word of god Sown
in the human heart.
The advent, the seed of the world's life, was hidden in Mary.
Like the wheat seed in the earth,
the seed of the Bread of Life was in her.
Like the golden harvest in the darkness of the earth,
the Glory of God was enshrined in her darkness.
Advent is the season of the secret,
the secret of the growth of Christ,
of Divine Love growing in silence.
It is the season of humility, silence and growth.
This time of advent is absolutely essential to our contemplation.
If we have truly given our humanity to be changed into Christ,
It is essential to us that we do not disturb this
time of growth.
It is a time of darkness, of faith.
We shall not see Christ's radiance in our lives yet;
It is still hidden in our darkness;
Nevertheless, we are to believe Christ is growing in our lives;
We are to believe it so firmly that we cannot help
relating everything, literally everything,
to this almost incredible reality.

~ from THE REED OF GOD by Caryll Houselander
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Christ could be born a thousand times in Galilee -- but all in vain until he is born in me.
~ Angelus Silesius
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In the silence of Advent, we are called to joy:

"Listen, I bring you news of great joy."
Joy is the transparency of grace,
the overflow of Christ's presence into us,
into the lives of others.
Joy is a gift, the fruit of the Holy Spirit.
"Christ's joy is the sharing in the unfathomable joy,
both divine and human,
which is at the heart of Jesus Christ glorified."
The deep, quiet joy of the gift
of goodness of life,
of one's family and friends,
of loving and being loved,
of holiness,
of the Eucharist.
We were created for joy!

~ from CELTIC MEDITATIONS by Edward Farrell
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Advent's silence reaches us as Love:

At the very heart of our experience, each of us has an intuitive sense of the value of unconditional love. We discover great joy when we can love without reservation, suspending judgments and opening fully to the vivid reality of another's being. Unconditional love has tremendous power, activating a larger energy which connects us with the vastness and profundity of what it is to be human. This energy is the energy of the heart ... This energy is the Love of Christ.

~ from "On Love" by John Welwood
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For, to love another is to address to that person the most powerful and imperious form of appeal. It is to stir up in his or her depths a silent and hidden person forced to emerge in response to our voice, so new that even its owner did not know it, yet so true that he or she cannot fail to recognize it, even though seeing it for the first time.

~ from IN HIS PRESENCE by Louis Evely
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Advent is a season to ponder "all these things" in our hearts:

Thomas Merton calls us all to contemplation in his book of Contemplative Prayer ...

" ... the most important need in the world today is the inner truth nourished by the Spirit of contemplation -- the praise and love of God, the longing for the coming of Christ, the thirst for the manifestation of God's glory, truth and justice -- the Kingdom of God in the world."

~ from CONTEMPLATIVE PRAYER by Thomas Merton & Thich Nhat Hanh
Thomas Merton Contemplative Prayer waiting

Christ is the Lord
Lord of the Light
Lord of the Shining Worlds
the One Light
within each One.

Christ is the One Light moving
across the face of the Earth
awakening souls
in the shadow of illusion.

Awakening love
and forgiveness
in every heart,
awakening Peace on Earth

~ Anonymous
Anonymous waiting

November 1988 (Vol. I, No. 10)

Greetings to all Friends of Silence in this month where we celebrate all the Saints and all the Souls. November is also the time to remember that we are all called to live with grateful hearts. And our Silence is often where the fullness of our thanksgiving is most keenly experienced.

Practicing Silence is the art of letting down the barrier that separates our rational consciousness from the depth of our soul ... of coming into touch with the spiritual world in a way that opens our whole being to the reality of the creative and integrating center -- to the Risen Christ ... In silence we meet the reality of the inner voice from God which gives inspiration, guidance and direction, and transformation.

The gift of Silence is to allow the Christ to bring the split-off, conflicting parts of our being into fruitful relationship, and at the same time, to deliver us from destructive evil which seeks to keep us fragmented and operating unconsciously. In this way, we are brought together and given a single eye -- that new center of being which allows us to operate at more nearly full potential, creatively and freed from giving in to destructive impulses.

~ from THE OTHER SIDE OF SILENCE by Morton T. Kelsey
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For, the ultimate goal of living in Silence is love, is to become holy and whole. The Holy is the most intimate and intensely personal and unitive of all experiences; that which integrates most totally, where all superlatives converge, where the sense of the overflowing ultimate Presence and Joy enwrap and draw us into the ecstasy of wordless adoration. Adoration of God is a long, slow life process of interpenetrating manifestation and discovery. Each of us is a pilgrim of the Absolute on an immense and limitless journey. Blessed are those who follow the Way with a single eye!

~ from SURPRISED BY THE SPIRIT by Edward J. Farrell
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On a dark afternoon -- I was ten or eleven -- I was walking on a country road, on my left a patch of curly kale, on my right some yellowed Brussel sprouts. I felt a snowflake on my cheek, and from far away in the charcoal-gray sky I saw the approach of a snowstorm. I stood still. Some flakes were now falling around my feet. A few melted as they hit the ground. Others stayed intact. Then I heard the falling of the snow, with the softest hissing sound.

I stood transfixed, listening ... and knew what can never be expressed: that the natural is supernatural, and that I am the eye that hears and the ear that sees, that what is outside happens in me, that outside and inside are unseparated. It is the inexpressible, and the inexpressible is the only thing that it is worthwhile expressing.

~ from THE ZEN OF SEEING by Frederick Franck
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This poem-prayer comes from Philip J. Bennett of Fostoria, Ohio. An excerpt from his letter gives some sense of his journey, which he generously shares with us: "The past six years have been my time of silence -- a time for prayer, a time for thought, a time to listen to God and man. As I listen to God, I receive hope out of inescapable despair; from man I hear mostly a college of confusion, ignorance, sin, arrogance, and ultimate despair, which drives me once again into the Silence to God for assurance and hope ... You are, therefore, an ember in a smoldering fire to me. You may be enough to rekindle a flame ..."

Ineffable Journey
(up to third heaven)

Fluttering wings descend on me,
To calm and cool my anxiety
That rages in my spirit which burns;
For God's outstretched hand it yearns.

Fluttering wings drive the wind;
And by it, to heave I ascend
Where the breath of God falls on me
Like waves of unimaginable ecstasy.

Fluttering wings have carried me
Far beyond the borders of credulity
To where eyes have seen and ears have heard
The reality of the Living Word.

Sometimes
in the stillness of the quiet,
if we listen
we can hear the whisper
in the heart
giving strength to weakness,
courage to fear,
hope to despair ...

~ from "Meditations of the Heart" by Howard Thurman
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October 1988 (Vol. I, No. 9)

Greetings to all friends of Silence, to each one of you who is a fragment of the word of God. Every one of us is a thirst for meaning, for ultimate value, for truth. Each one of us is a readiness to love, to follow, to give ourself to that which fills and completes the movement of our being.

The Word not only reveals God, it unveils us. The Word is consecratory -- continuing to change us more and more into God's image so that we can hear and understand how God is speaking in us. For the Word that God speaks is deposited deeply within. The womb of the mind and heart must be readied, waiting and responsive. The Word does not simply imprint itself. It embeds itself, releasing seeds that fall on the earth of our hearts. And these Word-seeds will mature in their own time, so that we may become the Word.

The Word of God always renders God present to us. When we have the desire and openness to hear, in the Silence we can ask, "What is the Word of God that is being uttered in me? What is the Word of God inviting me to become?" And as we experience God's word deep within us, we are compelled to share it with others, to act out of God's presence within us. Happy are those who hear the Word and make it their own!

~ from PRAYER IS A HUNGER by Edward J. Farrell
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Only the one who can bear silence will hear the voice of God.

~ Anonymous
Anonymous word

'

Only the one who can bear silence will hear the voice of God.

~ Anonymous
Anonymous word

The following excerpt is from the deeply moving story of Oliver written by his brother, Christopher de Vinck, who discovered through Oliver's life THE POWER OF POWERLESSNESS:

For thirty-three years Oliver lived in an upstairs bedroom, a child of light, a true innocent who never caused any trouble, never broke a commandment, never wronged another human being. Mother was confined to the house, alone and without the support of relatives or friends ... "This enforced seclusion was difficult for me; I had a restless, seeking spirit. Through a solitude where I could 'prepare the way of the Lord.' Sorrow opened my heart, and I 'died.' I underwent this 'death' unaware that it was a trial by fire from which I would rise renewed -- more powerfully, more consciously alive ... If there is a silence that is opaque and a solitude that is a prison, there is also a silence that is luminous and a solitude that is blessed terrain where the seeds of prayer can grow."

~ from THE POWER OF POWERLESSNESS by Christopher de Vinck
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That is not to suggest that we can live harmlessly, or strictly at our own expense; we depend upon other creatures and survive by their deaths. To live, we must daily break the body and shed the blood of Creation. When we do this knowingly, lovingly, skillfully, reverently, it is a sacrament. When we do it ignorantly, greedily, clumsily, destructively, it is a desecration. In such desecration we condemn ourselves to spiritual and moral loneliness, and others to want.

~ from "Nature's Way" by Wendell Berry
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One area where we probably often have the chance to be aware of our duplicity is in our speech. We talk so much. How much of what we say do we mean? How much of what we mean do we say? How much does what we say really mean? Suppose one undertook the discipline, well known in monastic tradition, of speaking only what one knew was GIVEN to one to speak? How quiet our homes, our dining rooms, even our churches and places of worship would be. Our society plays very loose with words, with talk; but there is little silence, and silence is where meaning comes from.

~ from REFLECTIONS ON SIMPLICITY by Elaine M. Prevallet
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We received a beautiful letter from Jean Vanier sharing his reflections on retreat as he celebrated his sixtieth birthday and the 25th anniversary of the L'Arche communities. He writes in part:

Sixty years is a turning point in life, and I am trying to prepare for it. I know that after sixty we begin to lose strength. I ask Jesus to help me grow old as He wants. If to disappear, how to trust others more, how to live with less power, but more from the grace of Jesus and the poor and to be more centered in prayer. In my prayer here I have a deeper desire to do the will of God, to be a friend and a servant of Jesus, and to let Jesus penetrate more and more into my whole being. Often my prayer has been just that: inviting Jesus to come with Light and Love into all the darkest, most hidden corners of my being.

~ Jean Vanier
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Father, to you I raise my whole being,
-- a vessel emptied of self. Accept, Lord,
this my emptiness, and so fill me with
Yourself -- Your light, Your Love, Your
Life -- that these Your precious Gifts
may radiate through me and over-
flow the chalice of my heart into
the hearts of all whom I
come in contact this day,
revealing unto them
the beauty of
Your Joy
and Wholeness
and
the
serenity
Of Your Peace
which nothing can destroy.

~ "The Prayer of the Chalice"
The Prayer Of The Chalice word

September 1988 (Vol. I, No. 8)

Autumn greetings! Harvest time -- the season for gathering the fruits of the earth ... a time when the words of blessing during Mass come so alive they seem to expand and encompass all the world. Blessed are you Lord, God of all creation. Through your goodness we have the wheat of the field ... the fruit of the vine. You have made us co-creators with you giving us opportunities to grow in love, to bring peace and justice to the world, to feed the hungry and to heal the planet. We are graced with forgiveness ... we are blessed with hearts that unite us to one another. Blessed are you Creator God, you who give each one of us the light to be ourselves! May we be led deeper into the Silence, that we might come into full harmony, to full union with the Heart of our hearts.

And,

may we consistently choose the single goal of peace
rather than multiple goals that lead to conflict;

may we continue to practice forgiveness;

may we recognize that we are united as one Self and illuminate the world with the light of Love that shines through us;

may we awaken to the knowledge that the essence of
our being is Love, and, as such, we are the light
of the world.

~ from LOVE IS LETTING GO OF FEAR by Gerald Jampolsky
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Silence is the language of the spirit.
~ John Main
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CONTEMPLATION ... from the Latin 'com' -together and 'templum' - temple. We contemplate that we might recognize ever more deeply who and Whose we are. "Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? ... God's temple is holy and that temple are."

~ I Corinthians 3:16-17
I Corinthians 3:16-17 contemplation

"Gather yourself up. Then -- with attention no longer frittered amongst the petty accidents and interests of your personal life, but poised, tense, ready for the work you shall demand of it -- stretch out by a distinct act of loving will towards one of the myriad manifestations of life that surrounds you: and which, in an ordinary way, you hardly notice unless you happen to need them. Pour yourself out towards it, do not draw its image towards you. Deliberate -- more, impassioned -- attentiveness, an attentiveness which soon transcends all consciousness of yourself, as separate from and attending to the thing seen. As to the object of contemplation, it matters little. From Alp to insect, anything will do, provided that your attitude be right: for all things in this world towards which you are stretching out are linked together, and one truly apprehended will be the gateway to rest."

~ from PRACTICAL MYSTICISM by Evelyn Underhill
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A note from Jerusalem Community in Paris:

Recently, Sr. Francesca-Marie wrote that a foundation of their community seems to be in gestation for the United States. She and several others spent time this summer gathering information and meeting with friends in the states for prayer and discernment. She asks us to pray in the Silence that the Lord of the harvest will send forth enough living American stones to build a solid foundation.

"Water from the moon" -- a Javanese proverb for what one cannot have. Why are we so full of these strange movements for what is not here? Longings get touched, yet have no place to expand into fullness. And what is longing anyway? Water. From the moon. I am not at home -- never have been. Not that I don't know at some levels my way around. I do. But in the end, I am alone. Still waiting. Still riding the swing of my childhood years with my feet stretching up to the clouds ... The person of a thousand dreams rarely realizes one. And worse, never gets broken by one -- and humanized ... So, what claims me? Perhaps only that I set my face toward the stars -- less compellingly than I could hope ... and yet, more tenaciously that I would wish. I face. Perhaps that is enough.

~ Jim Perkinson
Jim Perkinson contemplation

INTERIORITY ... The disciple asked for a word of wisdom. Said the Master, "Go sit within your cell and your cell will teach you wisdom." "But I have no cell. I am no monk." "Of course you have a cell. Look within."

~ from ONE MINUTE WISDOM by Anthony de Mello
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Let all the earth keep silence

May we each answer the call to let ourselves be defined by God at any given moment, let ourselves be attuned to our essential course of action, without loosing or abandoning any one of our own unique qualities and gifts.May we, like Mary, discover the secret of true silence.

"Let all the earth keep silence before God!"

July-August 1988 (Vol. I, No. 7)

Blessings to all Friends of Silence in these last two months of the Marian Year! Mary, beautiful model of holy receptivity, knew the secret of true silence ... she treasured all her memories faithfully and pondered them in her heart. She knew that to live in faith means to live in silence. Her very being is in unity with the hiddeness of a great Silence. Yet to know this Silence, she must depend on her own inner silence ... her own mystery. Mary shows us that to reverence that Silence is to be ever expectant to the divine Word welling up from within us. Blessed are those who await in faith for the Word to be dropped into the silence of their own well.

IN A CITY NOT FORSAKEN, the Jerusalem Community Rule of Life invites all to enter into the mystery of silence:

Silence is the well-spring of your prayer at the heart of the city and the daily peace of your soul ... In the crucible of silence you will learn holiness, since silence is the door to humility, contemplation and mercy. By leading you to self-forgetting, silence will allow you to discover God and in the heart of God, you will rediscover the world by God's light. So live outward silence and enjoy it inwardly and you will taste the perfect delight of those who keep the commandments in their hearts and dwell silently in God's love.

~ from IN A CITY NOT FORSAKEN
In A City Not Forsaken mystery

May we each answer the call to let ourselves be defined by God at any given moment, let ourselves be attuned to our essential course of action, without loosing or abandoning any one of our own unique qualities and gifts.May we, like Mary, discover the secret of true silence.

"Let all the earth keep silence before God!"

~ Nan Merrill
Nan Merrill mystery

Faith and Sharing celebrated their twentieth year with a retreat in Montreal in July. Jean Vanier shared out of his experience in the Faith and Light and the L'Arche Communities around the world the healing power of the poor. "The power of the powerless is to touch people in their hearts ... We will be healed by the weak ... To love someone is to reveal they are important, to reveal their beauty, to spend time with them."

"Love for a weaker person must come from a heart that is fulfilled. That is why one needs family or community with real love linking people together. But even more than that, one needs a heart that is formed and filled by the love of God; a heart that has known the tenderness of God's love. Only then can he or she love fully, freely, with tenderness, with a love that gives life and freedom ... Jesus is silent, hidden in the Eucharist. We must be very attentive if we are to hear the call: "Come and follow me." The poor are also often very silent, hidden away from the crowds and from society, in institutions and asylums. We must be very attentive if we are to hear their call "Come and live with me." Jesus touches our heart if we take the time to listen, calling us to a commitment and to a relationship of tenderness and fidelity.

~ from WELCOMING JESUS IN THE POOR by Jean Vanier
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This we know:
The earth does not belong to us
We belong to the earth.

All things are connected
Like the blood which unites one family

We do not weave the web of life
We are merely a strand in it.

And whatever we do to the web
We do to ourselves!

~ Chief Seattle (1854) with thanks to Maria Henry
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"Silence is sound from the future, an intimation of eternity. Eternity has begun for me. I carry eternity within me; it is slowly, silently growing out of me. More is becoming eternalized, forevered. 'Whoever really possesses the Word of Jesus can sense also his silence' (Ignatius of Antioch). Silence is our way of going into the desert, into eternity ... We each carry our own found anywhere else. Another can enable us to discover the hidden silence within ourselves. It is a special gift to receive the depth silence of another. Silence is a presence, a receptivity, a readiness, a waiting, a listening."

~ from CELTIC MEDITATIONS by Edward J. Farrell
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Lead us, O God, into paths from which our spirits shrink because the demand is so great. Give to us the quiet confidence, without trumpet blast, without arrogance and pride, declamation, flag waving ... but just a simple, simple trust. Let us be true to that which You have entrusted into our keeping, the integrity of our own souls. For us, O God, this is enough. Amen.

~ from TEMPTATIONS OF JESUS by Howard Thurmond with thanks to Fredi Brown
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June 1988 (Vol. I, No. 6)

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.

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

~ Egyptian 350 B.C.
Unknown prayer

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

~ Arsenius
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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
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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
Ludovicus Vives prayer

May 1988 (Vol. I, No. 5)

Happy Pentecost season to all friends of Silence! And what gift of the Holy Spirit are you praying to receive over the next thirty weeks -- piety ... counsel ... courage ... fear of the Lord ... knowledge ... understanding ... or, wisdom? There is so much that the Spirit wants to give to us in order that we might die to our inner fears, that we might give birth to our hidden selves which have not yet risen. Our homes, our cities, our countries, our world are in such need of these gifts today. And all that is given to us is for us to use to enrich one another ... to enrich all of creation.

Just as the seed given to Mary by the Holy Spirit brought forth the spiritual birth of Love to our world, the Holy Spirit in every moment awaits our fiat, our total YES to God's word in us, so that the inner womb of our hearts may receive the seed and give birth to that same Love.

God wants the heart.

~ The Talmud
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As a witness for Peace, our role was to witness in two senses of the word: we SAW, and by our presence we offered affirmation by word or example of a solidarity based on love and faith and the Good News. The word that is much used is "accompaniment." Our contribution was less in our doing than our being-with.

~ from "Out of Nicaragua" by Ginny Senders
Ginny Senders Out Of Nicaragua stillness

Something of supreme rightness
Lies at the heart of Life...
Like a star or a single white rose
Sufficient in Itself...
Yet It reaches everywhere
Whispering Itself.

~ Pat Munk - Katonah, NY
Pat Munk stillness

In the stillness, empty spaces occur and new possibilities are searching their way to the surface of the mind. A connection is made, new relationships are formed and new patterns emerge. This process of being still and moving at the same time to something new is the way the experience of creative thinking comes about in our minds. T.S. Eliot alludes to this process in the middle of the "Four Quartets."

We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion.

~ from WHEN SILENCE BECOMES SINGING by Helen Kylin
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"As the river enters into the ocean, so my heart touches Thee, O God."

~ Kabir
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I believe that God is in me as the sun is in the color and fragrance of a flower -- the Light in my darkness, the Voice in my silence.

~ Helen Keller
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The desire and pursuit of the whole is called love.
~ Plato
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I have a dream

  • of people recognizing the giftedness uniquely theirs,
  • of people standing tall in their gifts and using them to enrich the lives of others;
  • of people coming to a deeper union of God dwelling within them and a deeper communion with one another.
  • of peace and harmony reigning -- for power would be in docility to expressing one's gifts ...

I have a dream

  • of a people drawn together out of a shared vision, a new way of living together,
  • of each individual in their rightful place based on gifts,
  • of men and women standing side by side serving together to bring peace and justice to the city,
  • of a society based on deep trust that within each person
  • is a well of goodness, beauty and truth longing to express itself for the good of all ... and in freeing this inner well, an ocean of love that could fill the world.
~ Sr. Mary Frances - Detroit
stillness

Thou sweet Well for all who thirsteth in the desert! It is closed to the one who speaks, but it is open to all who are silent. When the one who is silent comes, lo, that one finds the Well.

~ Egyptian - 13th century B.C.
Unknown stillness

April 1988 (Vol. I, No. 4)

Greetings to friend of Silence around the world -- and, welcome to all those who have recently indicated their interest in and commitment to allowing enough silence in their lives for the Word to be heard!

"If two or more people love one another deeply, they may come to that profound level of awareness and mind-expansion in which no words are necessary because their intimacy is not built on words. And the stronger the love, the more profound will be the silence and the deeper will be the enlightenment. Furthermore, if this love goes to the core of their being, it brings a realization of something more than the people involved -- it brings a consciousness of the all; it contains an element of universality."

~ from SILENT MUSIC by William Johnston
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"The property of love is never to seek self, to keep back nothing, but to give everything to the one it loves. Blessed the soul that loves; the Lord has become its captive through love!"

~ St. John of the Cross
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A Morning Prayer: O Beloved of my heart, give me grace today to recognize the stirrings of your Spirit within my soul and to listen most attentively to all that You have to say to me. Let not the noises of the world so confuse me, that I cannot hear your Voice. Help me not to deceive myself as to the meaning of your Word; and so let me in all things surrender myself into your hands, through the grace of Christ's Love. Amen.

~ from A DIARY OF PRIVATE PRAYER by John Baillie
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The mystery IS Christ among you -- Christ in me, Christ in you, Christ between us. The root word of mystery in Greek is SILENCE, which is also related to secret. One way we come to know ourselves is by naming our reality, our experience: I am mystery ... I am sacrament ... I am silence ... I am secret ... I am treasure ... I am temple of the Holy Spirit...

"If you but knew the gift of God and who it is that speaks to you, in you ..." John 4:10 We are invited in the silence to discover the hidden mystery of Christ ... we are invited in the silence to delve so deeply into our inner beings that we become new beings!

~ from CAN YOU DRINK THIS CUP? by Fr. Edward J. Farrell
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Silence is a green, secluded garden,
Where you may walk at leisure, and
speak with the Beloved ...
Leaving the outer world of noise and hurry
To walk serenely on prayer's holy sod.

Silence is a garden sweet with fragrance,
Its grasses nurtured by faith's gentle rain,
Its every bloom a link with God,
our Creator.

Once you have wandered there,
you will return again,
And in the garden's beauty,
be made whole ...
In the Silence,
the quiet garden of the Soul.

~ author unknown, contributed by Fredi Brown, Bradenton, FL
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"Inspiration is the feeling of beginning at the threshold where Silence and Light meet. Silence and Light. Silence is not very, very quiet. It is something that you may say is lightless, darkless. These are all invented words. Desire to be, to express. Some can say this is the ambient soul -- if you go back beyond and think of something in which Light and Silence were together, and may be still together, and separate only for the convenience of argument ...

"The way one does things is private, but what one does can belong to everybody. Your greatest worth is in the area where you can claim no ownership, and the part that you do that doesn't belong to you is the most precious. It is the kind of thing you can offer because it is a better part of you; it is a part of general commonality that belongs to everybody."

~ from BETWEEN SILENCE AND LIGHT by John Lobell
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A Psalm for Today

For God alone my soul waits in silence;
from the Beloved comes my salvation.
Holding me with strength and steadfast love,
my faith shall remain firm.

How long will fears set upon me,
holding me in their grip,
like a trembling child,
a dark and lonely grave?
They keep me from living fully my true self.
They take pleasure in imprisoning my soul.
They pretend to comfort,
so long have they dwelled within me,
but truly, they are my enemies.

For God alone my soul waits in silence;
for my hope is from the Beloved.
Holding me with strength and steadfast love.
my faith shall remain firm.
In Silence rests my freedom and my guidance;
God is the Heart of my heart,
my refuge is in Silence.

Trust in God at all times, O people;
pour out your heart to the Beloved;
Silence is a refuge for you.

Once God has spoken,

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