In today’s increasingly plugged-in world, true silence is a hard-earned commodity. In this Notes from a Monastery booklet from Abbey Press/One Caring Place, Fr. Michael Casey looks at St. Benedict’s stringent rules of silence, and shows us how we can adopt this value for our own modern lives. By embracing silence, we speak more thoughtfully, listen more attentively, and pray more meaningfully.
Listening To God: The Value Of Silence In The Spiritual Life by Fr. Michael Casey, O.C.S.O.
Have you ever looked around at your fellow passengers as a newly landed plane begins to taxi toward the terminal? Many of them are reaching for their cell phones. When the screen lights up, so do their faces in anticipation. If there are messages for them, all is well; if not, they snap the phone shut and dolefully return it to its place.
We live in a world in which communication is highly valued, and its absence seems like an indicator of our little worth. It is as though the various means of communication are elements in our life-support system. Unless we remain connected to them we cease to exist. The content of the communication seems to matter less than the fact that somebody out there acknowledges our existence and wishes to make contact with us.
Granted the importance of communication and the anxiety we experience in its absence, why does St. Benedict regard silence as such an important element in leading a serious spiritual life?
Sins of the tongue. In his usual blunt way Benedict reminds us, first of all, that “in much speaking you will not avoid sinning” (Proverbs 10:19). It is a common observation that religious people express their resistance to God and their detachment from their neighbor less by overt actions than by thoughts and in their conversation. It is almost as though the evil within them, that they are trying to suppress by being good, somehow escapes despite their best efforts. Saint James devotes the third chapter of his Epistle to this theme and concludes that those who have reached the point of being able to control their tongues are already perfect (James 3:2).
The effort to monitor our speech is a good indication that we are serious about the spiritual life and that we have begun to live by some form of personal discipline. A refusal to be complicit in gossip, detraction, and slander is likely to change for the better the quality of our interaction with others and improve our peace of heart.
The laborious struggle to hold our tongue may also lead us in the direction of useful self-scrutiny. Why do we feel the need to talk so much? Why is it so hard to stop bad-mouthing others? Why are we so lacking in empathy that we are constantly harping on deficiencies?
If we sin often by speaking, then we will sin less often by speaking less.
Absence of noise. Monasteries are typically built in areas that are somewhat remote from the bustle of city life. Within the monastic environment, there is a conscious effort to do things with a minimum of noise. People visiting a monastery are often surprised by the quiet: they can hear the birds singing or the rustle of the trees in the wind.
Some are delighted, but others are disoriented, so accustomed are they to a constant background of noise: traffic, machinery, television, conversation.
Silence invites us to give less attention to the external world and to become more aware of the inner world, the world of spirit. We are able to hear the voice of conscience, and we become more aware of the Holy Spirit’s interior guidance. Prayer comes more easily because we are less distracted by extraneous sounds. This is why silence is a favored element of a prayerful retreat.
Silence can also be uncomfortable and even frightening. Because of this, we like to surround ourselves with familiar sounds. When we are quiet and still, the inner voices that are kept at bay by noise and activity begin to speak, and what they have to say to us is not always welcome.
Sometimes we discover within ourselves tendencies and desires that run contrary to the chosen direction of our life. In the same way, silence reveals to us what has yet to be done if our spiritual life is to be real. A recent reality TV program exploring this dimension provided this observation: “What’s happening in the silence is that stuff is coming up that I normally don’t give attention to, and I can get ambushed.”
The ancient monks went out into the desert to engage in spiritual warfare. Their experience was that where there is no distraction, it is impossible to avoid or postpone the inevitable clash with the negative elements in our own nature and history. Without a good measure of silence we will be merely skimming the surface of the spiritual life—doing good deeds and practicing the virtues—without ever scrutinizing the motives and intentions that inspire them. And, from time to time, we will be shocked when we behave in a way that is inconsistent with our ideals. We will be puzzled why this should be so.
A quiet and unexciting ambience is a valuable adjunct to our efforts to live spiritually. And if we cannot live thus always, there is an advantage in regularly seeking to withdraw from the noise and bustle of ordinary life into a zone of silence in which we can add depth to the spiritual pursuit.
To live sociably among others, it is necessary sometimes to be solitary. To engage fruitfully in conversation, it is necessary to develop the art of sometimes remaining silent.
Restraint of speech. Saint Benedict uses two different Latin words which are both often translated as “silence.” One is silentium, in which the emphasis is on an absence of noise. The other is taciturnitas, which properly means restraint of speech or taciturnity.
In his Rule, Benedict is quite severe in asking his disciples to curb their speech: “Because of the seriousness of silence, permission to speak should be given rarely to advanced disciples even for good and holy words of edification.” Benedict wants his monks to speak sparingly and to listen willingly, to fill their waking hours with the praise of God, purposeful work, assiduous reading and prayerful rumination. He puts in place rules of silence to restrict speech to specific times and places, so as to make possible the enjoyment of solitude even in a large and industrious community.
Small talk, idle chatter, and jokes he bans completely—though we may be allowed to wonder how successful this prohibition actually was!
It has to be remembered that St. Benedict lived in an oral/aural culture in which most of his monks would have had an instinctive preference for verbal communication over reading from books. To make provision for substantial and ongoing contact with the beliefs and values of monastic tradition, times for reading and reflection had to be protected. He even designated a couple of senior monks to patrol the monastery during periods of reading to make sure that slackers would not waste their time in meaningless conversation.
Silence is at the service of lectio divina (sacred, prayerful reading) and its kindred activities. Keeping silence for the sake of silence is meaningless. We restrain ourselves from speaking in order to listen. Only when we stop talking can we hear what others are saying.
To devote ourselves assiduously to sacred reading we need a time and space that is conducive to paying attention. Only when we are silent can we pass into deeper reflection: we cannot ponder and talk at the same time. Silence is necessary if we are to be aware of our conscience, of the interior promptings of the Holy Spirit, of the profound stirrings of our own spirits as they are drawn into prayer.
Without some measure of silence nothing much happens in our spiritual lives; we may do good deeds and practice virtue but our contact with the spiritual world will be slight, and our sense of intimacy with God undernourished.
Restraint of speech is an element in personal discipline which enables us to use our time wisely, but it is more than that. It is the means by which we are more receptive to other persons and to God. It is the necessary condition by which the Word of God implants itself in our heart, matures, and bears fruit. Without silence there is no growth in wisdom since, as St. Benedict reminds us, “Wise persons are known for the fewness of their words.”
Quality conversation. When our speech is under discipline it is far more likely to be encouraging and instructive to others, less prone to sowing the seeds of dissension, and more effective as a vehicle for transmitting the wisdom slowly acquired through long experience. Above all, such interior silence that expresses itself through outward attentiveness makes a person a ready listener, able not only to hear what is said but to perceive what is meant and to have some appreciation of the inner state of the one who speaks.
To arrive at such a state requires much self-restraint animated by a sincere concern to listen to others sympathetically. To welcome what others have to say is to offer a rare form of hospitality. Good listening is the most sincere form of kindness and the supreme mark of honor that we can give another.
The other person is not the only beneficiary, as we know from our own experience. If we set ourselves the task of really listening, we will often hear a word that touches us powerfully, whether as a comfort or a challenge. Nothing is more certain than the fact that God speaks to us through human agencies, but in a very subtle way. Unless we listen carefully we may miss the message. When mature Christians engage in mutual listening Christ is present.
Mystical silence. Silence not only provides the environment for prayer, it progressively becomes the content of prayer. Monastic prayer is an attentive and respectful stilling of the voice, the imagination, and the mind in anticipation of the Lord’s presence, slowly revealed. As prayer develops it tends to become less wordy until, at last, it needs only a few words to frame it. Sometimes “there is silence in heaven for half an hour” (Rev. 8:1).
The monastic tradition insists this is a relatively rare experience, especially in the beginning. More often than not the silence experienced in prayer is the simple act of waiting for the body and mind to become still so that God’s voice may be more clearly heard. Then we keep watch for the Lord’s coming. We pray not with many words, as St. Benedict says, but with tears of compunction and heartfelt desire.
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