Quoting Silence, April 2025:
|
|
|
A post throughout each week of the month, offering quotes and resources linked to one contemporary author who writes about silence and its role as a spiritual discipline. |
The first week of each month has a short, image-backed quote with links to associated resources in the text below it. In other weeks, the short quote is taken from a longer one by the month's author, found below the image. The last week of the month has a short quote and questions to encourage reflection on all the month's quotations and images.
Brother Richard Hendrick, our author for April, is a Franciscan friar and ordained priest who became more widely known during the COVID pandemic through his poetry.
You can read more about Richard Hendrick's book, Still Points: A Guide to Living the Mindful, Meditative Way (Dublin: Hachette Books, 2022), from which this month's quotes are taken, by clicking here.
You can read more about Richard Hendrick's book, Still Points: A Guide to Living the Mindful, Meditative Way (Dublin: Hachette Books, 2022), from which this month's quotes are taken, by clicking here.
Audio resources
|
For a 5 minute audio guided meditation to use with each week's short quote, click play on the image. To pause and restart click the same place.
|
An audio guided Lectio Divina for the longer quotes. Click play on the image above. Allow 10-15 minutes for this. For a text version, click the button.
|
Monday 7th April, 2025
Brother Richard Hendrick, Still Points: A Guide to Living the Mindful, Meditative Way (Hachette Books, 2022), 90.
Image: Max, Kuala Lumpur, unsplash.com/@notquitemax
To read more about Brother Richard Hendrick's' book, from which this month's quotes are taken, click here.
Brother Richard Hendrick, OFM, our author for this month, is a priest-friar in the Irish Capuchin Franciscan order, which came to Ireland in the early 1600s. The Capuchins - or Order of Friars Minor Capuchin, as they are formally known - arose in 1525 when a Franciscan brother, Matteo da Bascio, said that God had inspired him to understand that the manner of life of his contemporary Franciscans had become other than that of solitude and penance which had been envisaged by their founder, St Frances, in 1209. The Capuchins are known for their life of prayer and their particular ministry amongst the poor and sick. You can read more about the history and ministry of the Capuchin order here and you can read about the Irish Capuchins here.
What follows was not planned in any way but seems to be one of those serendipitous God-incidents of timing that invites us to reflect on the state of the world and our lives five years after the start of the Covid Lockdown in the UK.
Brother Richard received global acclaim during the COVID pandemic after publication of his poem, 'Lockdown', went viral. Click here to hear him reading it. On 30th March, 2020 - almost exactly five years ago today - it was posted as the third of the weekly, image-backed poems in Seeds of Silence's 'Poems and Prayers for Covid-19' series which, over the last five years has transformed into the weekly 'Quoting Silence: A month with ...' series that you engage with today. Click here for the original SoS image-backed post of 'Lockdown' and click here to see the entire SoS Covid-19 collection of over 50 poems. 'Lockdown' was featured on the BBC and translated into multiple languages, inspiring several pieces of music and two short films. See here to watch Ricky Bugeja's film about the empty and silent but stunning island of Gozo (off Malta) in the early pandemic. See here for an animated film by Margaret Zheng inspired by and with lines from the poem.
Aside from Br. Richard's book from which this month's quotes are taken (you can hear him reading the first 28 page section here), Hendrick published a new book in 2024: Calming the Storms: Meditation as a Path to Inner Peace and Happiness (Hachette Books, 2024) - see here. He has also written many more beautiful poems and lots are contained in his blog, 'Mindful, Mystical Musings' - see here - although he doesn't seem to have added to this since November 2024.
Monday 14th April, 2025
Brother Richard Hendrick, Still Points: A Guide to Living the Mindful, Meditative Way (Hachette Books, 2022), 161.
Image: Brett Jordan, London, unsplash.com/@brett_jordan
The short, image-backed quote, above, is taken from this week's longer quote, below, on page 161 of Br. Richard Hendrick's book. To read more about his book, from which this month's quotes are taken, click here.
|
Listen to this week's longer quote:
To listen to the longer quote, below, being read, click the play button on the small version of the image next to or below this text. To see the image full screen as you listen, click the expand screen icon in the corner. |
|
'It was said of Abba Agathon, one of the great monastic teachers of the early church, that for three years, he carried a pebble around between his lips until he learned to be silent.
We live in a world of noise and so forget that our words have an energetic weight for good or bad; that they carry a moral weight. To learn silence is to come to know the power of our words and so to choose them wisely. Put the pebble of mindful silence to your lips. Pause before speaking. Feel the weight of your words. Then, we will become aware of the Word who is behind the silence, speaking the cosmos into being through love. Speaking through us if we are silent enough to hear.’
Monday 21st April, 2025
Brother Richard Hendrick, Still Points: A Guide to Living the Mindful, Meditative Way (Hachette Books, 2022), 228.
Image: uk.pinterest.com/pin/290060032242744268/
& Jessica Fadel, Denver, USA, unsplash.com/@jessicafadel
& Jessica Fadel, Denver, USA, unsplash.com/@jessicafadel
The short, image-backed quote, above, is taken from this week's longer quote, below, on page 228-229 of Br. Richard Hendrick's book. To read more about his book, from which this month's quotes are taken, click here.
|
Listen to this week's longer quote:
To listen to the longer quote, below, being read, click the play button on the small version of the image next to or below this text. To see the image full screen as you listen, click the expand screen icon in the corner. |
|
'In both the East and the West, one of the most important practices taught to monastics is that of bowing. It is meditation in movement and, when done mindfully and with deep awareness and breath, it has the power as a practice to bring all of the mental, physical and spiritual faculties together in one action of unified attention. We bow simply in greeting or profoundly to mark moments of deep grace when we are visited by Divine Love in the liturgy, in prayer and meditation, or simply before the beauty of creation.
It is an act of vulnerability and humility in which the monastic acknowledges that we are not at the centre of the universe, we are not the most important, we are simply a mirror reflecting back to that other their Divine origin and seeing in them the presence of Divine Love and compassion. We acknowledge in the other their unique giftedness, their necessity of being for the completeness of the kingdom. Bowing says, "Let me learn from you, be open to you, listen to you, recognise in you the hand and voice of the divine teacher."
Bowing empties us so that we might be filled. It is an act of thanksgiving for, and solidarity with, the other. Even when we disagree with the other, we can come to silence and simply bow, reverencing the best in the other, seeing them as a sacrament of Divine presence, even if their view is opposed to ours.
Leave aside words, look deeply at them as brother or sister, and bow. At a time when so many refuse to give or yield or acknowledge the needs and rights of others in the world, perhaps the simple wisdom of the monastic bow needs to be learned again.'