Volume II, Treatise II, Chapter V

That Silence Is a Very Great Help to Prayer

SrLENcE not only teaches us to speak with men, but with God also, and makes us men of prayer. This is St. Jerom’s opinion, who says, that “this was the reason why the holy fathers of the desert, who were instructed by the Holy Ghost, were so careful in the observance of silence; which they looked upon to be the author and preserver of contemplation.”—(Hier. in Reg. Mon. c. xxii.) St. Diadocus says, “silence is an admirable virtue, being the mother of our best and most holy thoughts.”—(De Perf. spir.) Do you wish to be a man of prayer, to coverse familiarly with God, to be freed from bad thoughts, and always be in a disposition to receive divine inspirations? Take care to live in recollection and silence. A great noise hinders us from hearing what is said to us; in like manner, secular business and much idle talk permit us not to listen to divine inspirations, nor to conceive in our hearts what they would urge us to. When God wishes to converse with a soul, he desires to be alone with her. ‘I will lead her,” says he, “into solitude, and speak to her heart.”— (Osee 2:14) ‘There I will feed her with the sweet milk of spiritual comfort.”“—(Ibid.) God is a spirit, and it is a spiritual retreat he asks of us. ‘ What signifies,” says St. Gregory, “the solitude of the body, if the mind be not also in solitude?”—(In Job i, 30. c xii.) God requires a closet in your heart to converse with you in; at which time you may truly say with the Psalmist—“I have fled from the world, and retired to the desert.” (Psalms 54:8) But to do this, you need not make yourself an hermit, nor quit those places where charity to your neighbour requires your presence. If, then, you desire to maintain devotion in your heart, and to be always i in a good disposition for prayer, live in silence and recollection, when obedience and charity permits. It is a good observation of St. Diadocus, that as by often opening the door of a hot bath the heat is exhaled; so a frequent and unprofitable opening of the mouth, emits the fervour of devotion, divides the heart between many objects, and leaves a soul so destitute of good thoughts, that it is even very surprising to see how instantaneously the spirit of devotion evaporates thereby. If, then, you desire to be free, and to manage your time so that you may still find a vacant hour for prayer, keep silence, and you will find sufficient time wherein to entertain both God and yourself. Thomas-4-Kempis says, that if we bid adieu to all unprofitable conversations, if we employ ourselves no more than necessity requires, and disengage ourselves from the vain curiosities of the world, we shall find sufficient leisure to admit holy inspirations; but if we love to talk much, and to fix our hearts upon all those objects that strike or please our senses, we must not wonder that time is too short, and that we scarce ever find enough for our ordinary actions. Hence it was that the children of Israel, being dispersed all over Egypt to seek straw, could never perform the task set them; so that Pharao’s officers treated them harshly. There is still another thing very necessary to be observed, which is, that silence naturally disposes to prayer, as well as prayer to silence: “‘I] have more impediment and slowness of tongue,” said Moses to God, “ever since you were pleased to speak to me.” (Exodus 4:10) The prophet Jeremias also, after he began to speak to God, looked upon himself as an infant, and as one that knew not how to speak. St. Gregory takes notice, that those who give themselves to spirituality, and who frequently converse with God, grow deaf and dumb to all earthly things, and can neither speak themselves, nor bear to hear others speak of them: ‘ For being unwilling to speak of any thing but what they love, all other things become very tedious and intolerable to them.”—(Lib. vii. in Job.) This we ourselves sometimes experience, when God is pleased to shower down his graces upon us in prayer, and when we come from it full of devotion, For then we do not desire to speak to

any body, but keep our eyes so modestly cast down that we seem to have lost all curiosity; insomuch, that those who should see us then would think us tongue-tied, and bereft of every sense. From what does this come, but from our interior conversation with God, and from our being in such a condition, as diverts us from seeking any satisfaction from creatures? On the contrary, when we love to talk, and when the mind is spread on external objects, it is a proof that we have no interior fervour. How comes it to pass, says the author of the “Following of Christ,” that we so much love to converse with one another, since we rarely do it without hurt to our conscience? The reason is, because we desire to be comforted by one another—because we are willing to disburthen our hearts of a multitude of thoughts that oppress it—and because we take pleasure in speaking of what we love, or of what we are afraid of, as being opposite to our natural inclinations. We cannot find in our hearts to live without some little contentment or other, and having none within ourselves, or from God, we endeavour to find it abroad in creatures. Hence it is, that our exterior failings, for example, our violation of silence, loss of time, and many other irregularities, are so much taken notice of in religion, and so severely punished. For these faults, though they seem small in themselves, yet are a great sign of a soul’s being very little advanced in virtue, and show that the person who commits them, wants the qualities requisite for a spiritual life, and that he has not as yet tasted how sweet God is; because he knows not how to entertain himself with him, when alone in his cell. When a chest has no lock upon it, we easily conclude that there is nothing in it of any considerable value; in like manner, where silence and custody of senses are wanting, there is seldom any considerable virtue to be found; and therefore when we perceive any one to be deficient in these, we form a judgment of him accordingly.

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