“Do not wish to assure everyone in words of your love for them, but rather ask God to show them your love without words.”
—St. John Climacus
Category: SILENCE
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Some, I know not why (for I have not learned to pry conceitedly into the gifts of God) are by nature, I might say, prone to temperance, or silence, or purity, or modesty, or meekness, or contrition. But others, although almost their own nature itself resists them in this, to the best of their power force themselves; and though they occasionally suffer defeat yet, as men struggling with nature, they are in my opinion higher than the former.
St. John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent
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Silence and conversation
Question. There are certain conversations that are indifferent, bearing neither sin nor profit. These may include conversations with someone about, say, the prosperity of cities or their turmoil or peace, or about wars that are going to break out, or other such matters. Is it inappropriate to speak about these matters, as well?
Response by John
If silence is more necessary even during conversations about good matters, how much more so in matters that are indifferent? However, if we cannot keep silent, being overcome by conversing with others, let us at least not prolong the conversation in order not to fall into the snare of the enemy through chattering too much.
Letters from the Desert: A Selection of Questions and Responses
Barsanuphius & John -
For many it would mean great renunciation and discipline to give up these sources of noise: but they know that is what they need. Afraid to do it because their neighbors would think they were bats.
—Thomas Merton, The Sign of Jonas
The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise
Cardinal Robert Sarah -
In the noise of everyday life there is always a certain agitation that is stirred up in man. Noise is never serene, and it is not conducive to understanding another person. How right Pascal was when he wrote in his Pensées: “All the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber.”
The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise
Cardinal Robert Sarah -
It is necessary to provide ourselves with the means of the best possible environment for finding within us the silence that allows us to be in intimate communion with God. Christ very clearly recommends this search for intimacy: “When you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Mt 6:6). But our real room is precisely ourselves. Man is invited to enter into himself so as to remain alone with God.
The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise
Cardinal Robert Sarah -
We often forget that Christ loved to be silent. He set out for the desert, not to go into exile, but to encounter God. And at the most crucial moment in his life, when there was screaming on all sides, covering him with all sorts of lies and calumnies, when the high priest asked him: “Have you no answer to make?” Jesus preferred silence.
The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise
Cardinal Robert Sarah
SO GOOD QUOTES 