The Work Of Silence

Excerpt from ‘The Cloud of Unknowing‘:

‘There is a story of three monks who went to make a silent retreat like this together and they decided to be in complete silence for the retreat. The first evening, they lit a candle as they were sitting around and then they said, now we go into silence. Just as they were about to pray, the candle went out. And the first monk said: oh, the candle’s gone out!

And the second monk said: I thought we were supposed to be quiet! And the third monk laughed and said: ha I’m the only one who hasn’t spoken yet!

So it’s very easy to make these unconscious exceptions. But see the silence as the journey you’re making and as a liberation from this habit we have of constant chatter and constant unnecessary communication. We are moving to a much deeper level of communication in the silence. Just a word more about the silence. Silence is work. It’s a work of attention. It begins with a little work of self control, guarding the tongue. It then takes us into an interior dimension of silence. It’s delaying aside of thoughts. So it’s both inner and outer. That’s why we keep the physical silence, we don’t speak so that we can move beyond that first phase into this interior work.

It’s personal and it’s communal at the same time, we really understand what it means to live in community when we agree to live in silence because any one of us could disturb the silence. One for all and all for one. It’s a fragile as well as a very powerful energy. It’s the tongue and the mind, it’s physical and it’s digital. It’s difficult because we are really symbiotically related to the digital world now and communication. So take that seriously. There will be some withdrawal symptoms, but you will feel better for doing it and it is solitary, this silence, but it is also loving.

You would know as many of you would have already discovered, there is a real love to be found in that deepening silence.’

This is what The Cloud of Unknowing says about this work:

Lift up your heart to God with humble love, mean God Himself, not what you get out of Him.

Comment: It’s the basis of meditation. We’re turning towards God as the giver. Not for what we can get out of God – end comment. Indeed hate to think of anything but God himself so that nothing occupies your mind or will but only God. Comment: That doesn’t mean thinking about God having pious thoughts all the time. It means setting your mind on God’s kingdom before anything else – end comment. 

Try to forget all created things that He ever made and the purpose behind them so that your thought and longing do not turn to reach out to them in general or in particular, let them go. This is the work of the soul that pleases God most, all saints and angels rejoice over it and they help it with all their might. All the fiends however, are furious at what we are doing and try to defeat it in every conceivable way. Moreover, the whole of mankind is wonderfully helped by what you are doing in ways you do not understand. Even the very souls in purgatory find their pain eased by virtue of your work and in no better way, can you yourself be made clean or virtuous than by attending to this. Yet, it is the easiest work of all when the soul is helped by grace and has a conscious longing – comment. So be in touch with that conscious longing that brought you here. It’s not a bad thing to have that conscious longing. But also know that you will need grace to finish – end comment.

And it can be achieved very quickly. Do not give up then and work away at it till you have this longing.

Thank you for joining me at the WCCM Young Channel. Until next time. But for now, peace be with you.