11th December, 2024
Catherine de Hueck Doherty, Poustinia: Christian Spirituality of the East for Western Man (Madonna House Publications, 1993 [1974]), 32.
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'There is no solitude without silence. True, silence is sometimes the absence of speech—but it is always the act of listening. The mere absence of noise (which is empty of our listening to the voice of God) is not silence. A day filled with noise and voices can be a day of silence, if the noises become for us the echo of the presence of God, if the voices are, for us, messages and solicitations of God. When we speak of ourselves and are filled with ourselves, we leave silence behind. When we repeat the intimate words of God that he has left within us, our silence remains intact.
Silence is truth in charity. It answers him who asks. But it must give only words filled with light. Silence, like everything else, either makes us give ourselves, or it becomes miserliness and avarice, in which we keep ourselves to ourselves. …
Deserts, silence, solitude. For a soul that realizes the tremendous need of all three, opportunities present themselves in the midst of the congested trappings of all the world’s immense cities. But how, really, can one achieve such solitude? By standing still! Stand still, and allow the strange, deadly restlessness of our tragic age to fall away like the worn-out, dusty cloak that it is—a cloak that was once considered beautiful. The restlessness was considered the magic carpet to tomorrow, but now in reality we see it for what it is: a running away from oneself, a turning from that journey inward that all [people] must undertake to meet God dwelling within the depths of their souls.
Stand still, and look into the motivations of life. Are they such that true foundations of sanctity can be built on them? … Stand still, and lifting your hearts and hands to God, pray that the mighty wind of his Holy Spirit may clear all the cobwebs of fear, selfishness, greed, narrow-heartedness away from the soul: that his tongues of flame may descend to give courage to begin again.
All this standing still can be done in the midst of the outward noise of daily living and the duties of state in life. For it will bring order into the soul, God’s order, and God’s order will bring tranquillity, his own tranquillity. And it will bring silence.'
Pages 30-31 & 32.