Living The Catechism of The Catholic Church, Vol 4: 2 by Schoenborn Christoph Cardinal

Author:Schoenborn, Christoph Cardinal [Schoenborn, Christoph Cardinal]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Spiritual & Religion
ISBN: 9780898707274
Publisher: Ignatius Press
Published: 2011-03-31T16:00:00+00:00

27

Prayer and silence

Mother Teresa of Calcutta (d. 1997) says: “Prayer is difficult if you do not really know how you should pray. To be able to pray, we must learn to be silent. People who can pray are people who love silence.”

Peace and quiet have become a precious commodity today. Even in the mountains we are tracked down by noise from the valley or from the airplanes in the sky. The modern world is loud. Where there is a lot of noise, you do not hear well. Hearing loss occurs more and more frequently. In all that noise, conversation founders, too; it is more and more difficult for us to hear each other. So conversation is muted. Spouses, families, suffer from the loss of intimate conversation. The hectic pace of our age, the glittering television screen, the stresses of the working world, the demands of leisure activities—all these things make it more difficult for us to listen to each other and to find words for each other.

This falling silent, however, is not the silence of which Mother Teresa speaks. The silence out of which prayer arises comes from hearing, from attentive listening, from hearkening to the person who speaks to us. “Hear, O Israel”, begins God’s constant call to his people (Deut 6:4). In order for us to be able to hear God, we must be silent ourselves. Many words are not necessary for prayer, but rather an attentive heart, an “understanding mind” (1 Kings 3:9). “In praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Mt 6:7-8).

How difficult it is to bring the torrent of words to a standstill! When we become quiet externally, usually the internal uproar begins: thoughts pursue one another, everything we think we ought to be doing demands our attention, suddenly seems so urgent. Although we longed for it, silence makes us anxious the moment it stands at the door of the heart and we really have the opportunity to enter into it.

The Dominican mystic John Tauler (fifteenth century) says: “If God is to speak, then things have to be silent. All powers must be silent and prepare a great stillness for God.” Sometimes God first has to lead us into the desert in order for us to begin to hear, in order for “things” and “powers” to be silent. “Let go” of yourself, of your worries, of all desires and ideas, fears and memories!

Often our worship services are not much help in attaining this interior peace and quiet, the relinquishing of ourselves for a relationship with the One who awaits us: too many words, too much “action” (as important as this is in the liturgy), too few pauses and moments of quiet! How important it is after Communion to remain at peace, when Christ has come to us in the Blessed Sacrament! Quiet eucharistic adoration is an aid to resting in the Lord with an attentive ear and a loving heart.

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