“We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature – trees, flowers, grass – grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence… We need silence to be able to touch souls.”

–M. Teresa

The call of Christ is not just a call to service and evangelization.  It is also a call to silence and contemplation.  This place, the integration of silence, is a new space for many that encourage the individual to develop meaningful, well-balanced relationships with God and man.  This idea is a commodity in a hyper connected world that discourages human contact and relationships – as we have known them.

See, the longer I walk with Christ the more I sense the CALL to develop my “interior life” – balancing the busy demands of modern existence and the call to constant action.  This interior life is a call toward quiet, intimate union with Him.  It is about reorganizing my day to ensure that He is truly the central figure of my life.  It means that I consciously quiet myself [mouth + mind] and purposely turn off the “noise” allowing Him total and complete access to me.  It means that I respect Christ enough to give Him my full attention and not simply what is left over after a long day.   It is a call to embrace a rhythm that emphasizes the centrality of Christ in our life, a commitment to family, friends and the recognition of our collective mission among the marginalized.

Pope Benedict XVI, having embraced the era of new media, emphasized the importance of silence in his recent visit to a Carthusian monastery.  He stated,

“Technical progress, markedly in the area of transport and communications, has made human life more comfortable but also more keyed up, at times even frantic…” Speaking to the Carthusian community Benedict states, “by withdrawing into silence and solitude, human beings, so to speak, ‘expose’ themselves to reality in their nakedness, to that apparent ‘void,’ …in order to experience instead Fullness, the presence of God, of the most royal Reality that exists and that lies beyond the tangible dimension.”

In addition, on the event of the World Day for Social Communication Pope Benedict made this statement which sums up need for balance in our lives when he said,

“learning to communicate is learning to listen and contemplate as well as speak.”

In a world filled with noise and a growing number of platforms to deliver their message to your doorstep we would be wise to integrate the discipline of silence and contemplation into our already busy life.  It is in this context that we rediscover God (His voice), renew our mind, and refresh our soul.

May God give us peace