On Silence
Silence is central to Benedictine monks life. It is interesting to notice that The Rule starts with the words, “Listen, my son to the master’s instructions and take them to heart.”.4 The act of listening implies being in silence, listening to the master’s words, the abbot or mother in the case of Benedictine nuns. Listening necessarily derives from the act of staying still and having the humility to ignore their thoughts and take the master’s words “to heart” 4. To be in silence is also a way to be in contemplation and to avoid sin.4 I do not believe sin can be avoided with silence only. One can find sin in silence as much as in noise and agitation. Although if the heart is in the right place, men will look for silence to encounter God and avoid sin through prayer by God’s will.

Today, as in the fifth century, essential parts of our lives are presented as noise. For instance, the first cry of a just born child loudly states to everyone that can listen that he is not happy to be in this new environment. On the opposite side, the Universe runs in silence. The moon, the sun, the planets, the stars run in silence. Our vital organs run in silence, our brain runs in silence, our hearts run in silence, and the blood runs in silence throughout our body. When they do not, something is not correct.

Robert Cardinal Sarah writes that “Silence is naturally part of men’s heart because God is silence and God resides in every man”.6 “Is God silence”? Indeed, we need silence to find God. The Bible tells us that prophets like Moses and Elijah went to the desert and looked for silence to pray and speak to God. On several occasions, Jesus looked for a solitary place, the desert or the mountain, where he would find solitude and pray (Luke 5:16). The opportunity to be closer to God and pray guided the desert fathers to go to the desert and live their lives of meditation and fast. This fact inspired Benedict to write The Rule. According to Cardinal Sarah, as it was for St. Benedict, silence may be the absence of speech, by it is also the attitude of someone who listens and receives with humility the others and God in their heart.5

Although looking at childbirth, and despite the noise experience, one also finds the presence of God in a very Benedictine way. The love and humbleness of the parents to receive what God have to offer them is a powerful way of saying yes to God and a demonstration of obedience and humility.

Essentially, I agree with Cardinal Sarah’s statement that God is silent because His voice is not phys-ically heard. In this case, I like to think in silence as the language of the soul. God touches our soul in silence because, in silence, we are open to listening to His silent voice. The noise of the days can be distracting, setting us away from the crucial. Benedict wanted the brothers to experience with their soul, through prayer, the profound union with God in silence, to avoid being distracted by daily life. God is silent and speaks through silence, but also love.

Notwithstanding being and speaking through silence, He always listens as an act of love for us. “And this is the confidence that we have toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, he hears us.” (John 5: 14). We need to look for Him in silence and listen. Listen, being humble the way Benedict wants the brothers to be. Then “Silence sets down a place for wisdom to find a home” 4, a home for our soul in God.

Blaise Pascal, the French mathematician and philosopher from the 17th century, said that “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”6 One believes that our society faces a significant challenge to staying silent. In a world full of noise and distractions, Benedict’s proposal of silence is, I trust, medicine humanity needs to cure the overflooding of dis-turbance. If we do not cultivate stillness, how can we find God?

(cont.)

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1 Pope Benedict XVI, Great Christian Thinkers from the Early Church through the Middle Ages (SPCK, 2011). p.126-129.
2 Linda Woodhead, An Introduction to Christianity, Fourth (Cambridge University Press, 2008). p.99-100
3 Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity (Penguin Books, 2010). p.318
4 Benedict, The Rule of St. Benedict, ed. by Carolinne White, Pengiun Books (Penguin Group, 2008)..

5 Robert Cardinal Sarah, The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise, ed. by Ignatius Press, 2017. p.22,
6 Blaise Pascal, ‘Pensees’ https://www.buboquote.com/en/quote/5244-pascal-all-man-s-misfortune-consists-in-this-one-thing-his-inability-to-remain-quietly-in-one.