"You need to release the load that God never meant for you to carry, and focus on what He has truly called you to do."

Let Go ... Let God

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Every gift from God [like silence] invites us to greater intimacy with God - not as something we achieve or earn but something we may simple accept. The steps we take in response to the gifts we receive are how we say yes to God's love.

~ Carl McColman, from the book "Befriending Silence"

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Constant One

God cannot be found in noise and agitation. His true power and love are revealed in what is hardly perceptible, in the gentle breeze that requires stillness and quiet to detect. In silence, God listens to us. In silence, listen to Him. In silence, God speaks to our souls and the power of His word is enough to transform our very being. We cannot speak to God and to the world at the same time. We need the sacred space that silence creates in order to turn our undivided attention toward God even if it is only for a few precious moments of our day.

Many respected persons made it a practice to rise in the night or in the quiet hours of the morning to seek inspiration that comes in silence, Plato, Einstein, and even Jesus Himself. We all should find a time and a place to be in silent prayer. In the Carmelite tradition, the spiritual life is said to have two aims: the first is about our love of God and the second is about God’s love for us. The practice of silence facilitates both of these aims.

We are meant to taste in our hearts and experience in our minds, not only after death but in this life, something of the power of the Divine Presence and the bliss of heavenly glory. From this point of departure in faith, silence becomes more than a practice. It is a form of prayer – a prayer of listening, waiting, and receptivity. It is a prayer that anticipates and expects intimate communion; it believes in the possibility and holds in high esteem the value of being in relationship with God. The value of this type of prayer is difficult for our productivity-oriented culture to grasp. It is hard for us to see that a prayer in which “being” predominates over “doing” and that a prayer in which nothing happens is a prayer in which everything happens. It is in silence that we make the interior transition from darkness to light. We become more aware of God’s presence within us, of Him speaking to us, of the hidden things which He wishes to reveal to us.

Through silence we become more deeply aware of the beauty, unity, goodness and truth all around us and within us. Through faith our whole outlook on life is changed. What used to appear as ordinary, temporal events, become reflections of these four attributes of God. These happenings become messages through which He speaks intimately to our hearts; moments of sublime personal contact with Infinite Love Itself.

Listening to the word in silence, faith and love, we hear the secret to our happiness and authentic personal fulfillment. Only in this do we truly begin to fill that deep void and satisfy the longing that consumes us as human persons.

The gift of love, however, only comes to complete fruition when it is embraced by our response of love. God gives Himself entirely to us without reserve. His one request is that we return His love in like manner. “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Matt 22:37-39, NASB). This is also expressed in the Carmelite tradition through the first aim of the spiritual life that we offer God a pure and holy heart, free of the actual stain of sin, accomplished both with God’s grace and our own efforts of virtuous living.

The human heart in its brokenness tends to cling readily to those things among which it habitually finds itself. Our thoughts feed our emotions and our desires. So if we are placing ourselves most frequently in the noises of the world that speak to values contrary to God’s way, our desires will easily be lead astray. Ensnared by these misled desires, we cannot be free to love God with our whole being. The person who persistently seeks noise and diversion betrays his own insecurity. When we do not possess the changeless One, we seek constant change. The person who has encountered God, and seeks after Him in love, will return to the quiet places of silence where the sweetness of His presence still lingers.

“The Lord is in His holy temple, let all the earth keep silence before Him.” (Habakkuk 2:20)

"by Sister Mary Clare, O.C.D.Carmelite Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart of Los Angeles"

"Behind the silence breathes the Father. The solitude is inhabited by a presence, and above us waits rest and liberation." ~ Ignacio Larranaga

"The quiet interlude, the silent pause, can be a setting for God to speak. A spirit of receptivity to God in that silence can be a catalyst to grace. Perhaps God hides Himself in these silent interludes waiting to be heard." ~ Fr. Donald Haggerty

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Traditionally we are taught, and instinctively we long, to give where it is needed - and immediately. Eternally, woman spills herself away in driblets to the thirsty, seldom being allowed the time, the quiet, the peace, to let the pitcher fill up to the brim. ~ Anne Morrow Lindbrgh, from The Gift of the Sea

" Mary, set the Lord before her. He was her portion. She was not shaken when Martha got mad, or when Judas questioned her. She was at the Lord’s feet, where a disciple was meant to be."~ Danielle Cevallos

"But when I see women that do things out of ‘servitude’ and not out of service,” said Pope Francis. “And that it is not understood well what a woman ought to do. Can she be valued more?" ~ Pope Francis

Our intimate relationships remain safe and superficial until we can be with the other in silence – not the passive aggressive forms of this that are so common but the open and trusting posture of presence that is so essential for genuine intimacy. And of course we also remain a stranger to our own being until we can simply be with ourselves in silence. ~ Dr. David Brenner

Silence plays a uniquely important role in any deep engagement with oneself, others, life, or the transcendent. It is the doorway through which we must pass on the journey from living on the surface of life to living out of our depths. ~ Dr. David Brenner

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"Darkness does not hide You, distances do not seperate You. There is no interference in the world that can keep me from You. You are with me. I go out on the street and You walk with me. I go to work and You are at my side. While I sleep, You watch over my dreams. You are not a detective who spies; You are a Father who takes care of me. At times I feel like shouting: I am a child lost in the forest, I am alone, no one loves me. Soon I hear Your response: I am with you, be not afraid."

~ Inacia Larranaga

Spending time alone with me can be difficult discipline, because it goes against the activity addiction of this age, you may appear to be doing nothing but actually you are participating in battles going on within spiritual Realms, you are Waging War not with the weapons of the world, but with Heavenly weapons, which have divine power to demolish strongholds, living close to me is a sure defense against evil. ~ Jesus Calling

Come ...

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"How often do we treat God as if he were a parking meter? I put in some coins, and I get a slip of paper that gives me permission to park, or I get good weather or good results on a test. The psychologist asked us to think of images of God that did not use him as a thing. The only image I could come up with was Jesus and me sitting on a park bench enjoying a beautiful sunset together. Nothing is said. We enjoy each other and the sunset without words. We don’t demand anything of the other. We communicate and are united without speaking." ~ Sister Sheryl Frances Chen

Self-respect cannot be hunted. It cannot be purchased. It is never for sale. It cannot be fabricated out of public relations. It comes to us when we are alone, in quiet moments, in quiet places, when we suddenly realize that, knowing the good, we have done it; knowing the beautiful, we have served it; knowing the truth we have spoken it. ~Whitney Griswold

You Speak

"...almost all of us know God only through hearsay and the more open we are to his silence and to our own silence, the more we truly begin to know him." ~ Pope Benedict XVI

Go In Peace

When no one listens
To the quiet trees
When no one notices
The sun in the pool.
Where no one feels
The first drop of rain
Or sees the last star
Or hails the first morning
Of a giant world
Where peace begins
And rages end:
One bird sits still
Watching the work of God:
One turning leaf,
Two falling blossoms,
Ten circles upon the pond.
One cloud upon the hillside,
Two shadows in the valley
And the light strikes home.
Now dawn commands the capture
Of the tallest fortune,
The surrender
Of no less marvelous prize!
Closer and clearer
Than any wordy master,
Thou inward Stranger
Whom I have never seen,
Deeper and cleaner
Than the clamorous ocean,
Seize up my silence
Hold me in Thy Hand!
Now act is waste
And suffering undone
Laws become prodigals
Limits are torn down
For envy has no property
And passion is none.
Look, the vast Light stands still
Our cleanest Light is One!

~ Thomas Merton

Help me to be less fearful of the measure of time, and more fully alive in the time that simply is. Help me to live time, not just to simply use it; to breathe it in, and return it in acts of love and presence. ~ Avis Crowe

"The world and time are the dance of the Lord in emptiness.
The silence of the spheres is the music of a wedding feast.

The more we persist in misunderstanding the phenomena of life,
the more we analyze them out into strange finalities
and complex purposes of our own,
the more we involve ourselves in sadness, absurdity, and
despair.

But it does not matter much,
because no despair of ours can alter the
reality of things,
or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always
there.

Indeed we are in the midst of it,
and it is in the midst of us,
for it beats in our very blood, whether we
want it to or not.

Yet the fact remains that we are invited to forget
ourselves on purpose,
cast our awful solemnity to the winds and join in the
general dance."

~ Thomas Merton

My Yoke is Easy

"Set free from human judgement, we should count true only what God sees in us, what He knows, and what He judges. God does not judge as man does. Man sees only the countenance, only the exterior. God penetrates to the depths of our hearts. God does not change as man does. His judgement is the only one upon whome we should rely. How happy we are then, and how peaceful! We are no longer dazzled by appearances, or stirred up by opinions; we are united to the truth and depend upon it alone. I am praised, blamed, treated with indifference, disdained, ignored, or forgotten; none of this can touch me. I will be no less than I am. Men and women want to play at being creator. They want to give me existence in their opinion, but this existence that they give me is nothingness. It is an illusion, a shadow, always following me, behind me, at my side. Is it me or something that belongs to me? No, Yet does not this shadow seem to move with me? No matter: it is not me. So it is with the judgements of men: they would follow me everywhere, paint me, sketch me, make me move according to their whim, and, in the end, give me some sort of existence ... but I am disabused of this error. I am content with a hidden life. How peaceful it is ! Whether I truly live this Christian life of which St. Paul speaks, I do not know, nor can I know with certainty. But I hope that I do, and I trust in God's goodness to help me." ~ Bishop Jacques Benigne Bossuet

"A quiet time isn't about performing for God. It's about being with God." ~ Joanna Weaver

"Nazareth is the place of our hidden, secret life, the veiled life known to God alone. It is a life so deep that there are aspects of it that are, if not hidden from, at least mysterious even to ourselves...if we be saints, ....we will be formed by our hidden and unseen places. Part of the task of maturity for us is to discover and become comfortable with our unseen places." ~ Bonnie Thurston, 'Hidden in God - Discovering the Desert Vision of Charles de Foucauld' (Blessed Charles de Foucauld was beautified on Nov. 13, 2005)

"Passion as prayer is not about energy and volume; it is about being engaged from the heart with the Lord." ~ International House of Prayer