Silence. How precious, but how elusive!

s you might expect, there was much of what was said in the Addresses at St Canice’s yesterday that resonated with me. But one thought in particular had already been percolating around in my head of late (in quotes below)

My brother Mark says little, but his inferences deafen me; my friend Pam is a tad more pointed; and Edmundo tells me that I keep producing blog posts to get plaudits from my ‘Adoration Society’, and further admonishes me turn down my level of intensity.

I know they think I spend too much time at the computer – keeping busy. So, after another gentle nudge in words of Bishop Peter yesterday I am sharing a personal self-criticism, He has me confessing that my best intentions to simply stop and ‘read a book’, or ‘pray’, so often get ‘rail-roaded’ by other ‘chatter’ in my brain. And what am I going to do about it?

Anyway, while I ponder, you may like to read the ‘Bishop Peter’ extract in which he talks about Silence:

Have you ever had the experience that the words Scripture were addresses personally to you? For this to happen regularly, we need to learn to listen.

But how can we listen to God today when music devices are permanently attached to our ears or when the TV is automatically turned on when you enter the living room? Our modern malaise is not that we cannot hear, but that we have filled our lives with devices that stop us from listening.

Silence is a precious thing, something to be fostered. In faith, it is silence that is the path to hearing what the Lord might want to say to us. And that takes time and effort.

Bishop Peter Comensoli