Quoting Silence, April, 2026:
|
|
|
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. |
Different weeks of the month offer different resources, as below:
- first week: a short, image-backed quote with links to associated resources in the accompanying text
- middle weeks: a short, image-backed quote taken from a longer one by the author, found below the image
- last week: a short quote and questions to encourage reflection on all the month's quotations and images
Robert Llewellyn, our author for April, is primarily known for his work in later life publicising the writings of Mother Julian of Norwich.
You can find out more about his book, A Doorway to Silence: The Contemplative Use of the Rosary (Darton, Longman and Todd, 1986), from which this month's quotes are taken, by clicking here.
You can find out more about his book, A Doorway to Silence: The Contemplative Use of the Rosary (Darton, Longman and Todd, 1986), 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 6th April, 2026
Robert Llewellyn, A Doorway to Silence: The Contemplative Use of the Rosary (Darton, Longman and Todd, 1986), 55.
Image: Alex Schute, unsplash.com/@faithgiant
To read more about Robert Llewellyn's book, from which this month's quotes are taken, click here.
Robert Llewellyn (1909-2008) was born in Exmouth, Devon, before World War I, and lived until he was 98. Having studies mathematics at Pembrooke College, Cambridge, in the early 1930s, he became a maths teacher at Westminster School, which originated from a charity school established by the monks of Westminster Abbey in the fourteenth century. Here, the actor, Peter Ustinov, and the politician, Tony Benn, were amongst his pupils. After Llewelyn's ordination as a priest in the Church of England in 1937, he continued to teach at the school until granted a year's leave of absence in 1939 to go to live in a missionary community at Cawnpur, in India's Uttar Pradesh region. Prevented from returning by the outbreak of World War II, Llewellyn established a school for the children of British officials in India who were unable to return to England.
After the war, Llewelyn was asked to take on a variety of roles leading schools and Christian communities, moving repeatedly between short spells in England, and India and the Bahamas. Known for his interest in Mother Julian, on retirement in 1976 he accepted the invitation to become Chaplain at the shrine of Julian of Norwich in St Julian's Church, Norwich: see here. In this role he single-handedly did much to popularise and explain the writings of Julian - the first known works by a woman written in the English language: see here - editing her writings and publishing books about her work. His book, With Pity Not with Blame (Darton, Longman and Todd, 1982) - see here - sought to bring Julian's theological ideas to modern life. For an extensive list of other books by Llewelyn, predominantly about Julian and contemplative prayer, see here.
A book of Llewelyn's unpublished writings were released as Why Pray? (Darton, Longmand and Todd, 2019), edited by Denise Treissman, his literary executor. For a blog post about this book, which contains a lovely section by Robert on his philosophy of life, see here. For the book, see here.
As Robert Llewelyn was quite elderly by the time things internet were well underway, other than text articles, there is not a lot about him available. However, here you can find a 12 minute interview with him, date unknown, and here, a 1 minute video.
In 1994 Llewelyn was awarded the prestigious Templeton Prize for his contribution the the advancement of religion in the field of spirituality. Four years later, in 1998 he was awarded the Cross of Saint Augustine, the second highest international honour in the Anglicanism - see here - given by the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey, who described him as 'one of the outstanding spiritual teachers of our age'.
Monday 13th April, 2026
Robert Llewellyn, A Doorway to Silence: The Contemplative Use of the Rosary (Darton, Longman and Todd, 1986), 48.
Image: Davidson Luna, New York, unsplash.com/@davidsonluna
The short, image-backed quote, above, is taken from this week's longer quote, below, on pages 48-49 of Robert Llewelyn'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. |
|
'Watch your will and not your feelings.
If you are in silence and intending to pray, you are praying. You are not to worry if it does not feel like it. If you are saying the Rosary and intending to pray, you are praying whether you feel that way or not. If you finger through the beads of the rosary in silence, intending to pray, then most surely you are praying. So, too, if you are washing up, serving your neighbour, listening to music, taking a walk, eating a meal, and intending to pray (that is to say, your action has been offered to God), you are praying.
But in these last activities and the like, it is easy to lose your intention, and so you need practice regularly in the formal times of prayer. It has been wisely said that we can never learn to pray everywhere all the time until we have first learned to pray somewhere some of the time.
It is good to reflect from time to time that we are to go to prayer for God’s sake and not our own.
Even so, that can never be entirely true, not at least this side of death. In some degree we shall always pray to God mindful of what we get from him. Nor would God want it otherwise. For at every point God accepts us as we are, and he will accept and purify our mixed motives when we make our daily offerings as purely as it is given us to do.
Our intention and desire to go to God for his sake will be revealed in the constancy of our prayer in those periods when feeling and mood are acting against us. If, when the time of prayer comes round, we do not respond, except when we feel like doing so, then it is a clear sign that we go to God chiefly for what we get from him. If, however, come what may, we faithfully respond, then God is placed first and is honoured as any lover would honour his beloved.
There is no surer test of motive or of the genuineness of our prayer life than the manner of our response when the going is hard.'