QUOTATION: Silence

Silence is God’s first language.

--St. John of the Cross

QUOTATION: The Need for Rest

Each one of us needs time and space for recollection, meditation and calmness.... Thanks be to God that this is so! In fact, this need tells us that we are not made for work alone, but also to think, to reflect or even simply to follow with our minds and our hearts a tale, a story in which to immerse ourselves, in a certain sense “to lose ourselves” to find ourselves subsequently enriched.

--Pope Benedict XVI

QUOTATION: Prayer

If you face God in prayer and silence, God will speak to you.

--Mother Teresa of Calcutta, No Greater Love.

QUOTATION: Saint Joseph

The prudence of Saint Joseph is part of our Catholic faith. It is especially shown in his remarkable practice of silence. Of course, Joseph talked. Yet the Gospels do not record a single word he spoke, no doubt to teach us that if we wish to practice the virtue of prudence, we must look to our practice of silence.

--Fr. John Hardon, “St. Joseph - Foster Father of Jesus”

QUOTATION: Silence

To speak seldom, and then but briefly, prevents sin. Where there is too much talk, God is in one way or another offended, and reputations suffer.

--St. Bonaventure, Holiness of Life

QUOTATION: Silence

Silence has another advantage. It shows that man belongs to a better world. If a man lives in Germany and yet does not speak German, we naturally conclude that he is not a German. So too, we rightly conclude that a man who does not give himself up to worldly conversation is not of the world, although he lives therein.

--St. Bonaventure, Holiness of Life

QUOTATION: Silence

Whosoever looks into murky and agitated waters cannot see his own countenance. If you want the face of Christ to appear in your countenance, pause, recollect your thoughts in silence, and shut the door of the soul to the noise of exterior things. 

--St. Anthony of Padua

QUOTATION: Silence

Let us leave a little room for reflection, room too for silence. Enter into yourself, and leave behind all noise and confusion. Look with yourself. See whether there be some delightful hidden place in your consciousness where you can be free of noise and argument, where you need not be carrying on your disputes and planning to have your own stubborn way. Hear the word in quietness that you may understand it.

--St. Augustine, Sermon 52:22

QUOTATION: Rules of Speech

How good and peaceful to be silent about others, not to believe without discrimination all that is said, not easily to report it further.

--Thomas a Kempis

QUOTATION: Tranquility of the Soul

You know that on a serene night, when the lake is calm, its waters unrippled by a breath of wind, the sky is so well shadowed in it, with all the stars, that looking down, we see the beauty of the heavens there as well as if we raised our eyes on high. In like manner, when our soul is tranquil, unagitated by the winds of superfluous care, unevenness of disposition, or inconstancy of mind, it is well-suited to bear an image of Our Lord.

--St. Francis de Sales, Consoling Thoughts

QUOTATION: Silence

Silence is a sword in spiritual struggle. A talkative soul will never attain sanctity. The sword of silence will cut off everything that would like to cling to the soul. We are sensitive to words and quickly want to answer back, without taking any regard as to whether it is God’s will that we should speak. A silent soul is strong; no adversities will harm it if it perseveres in silence. The silent soul is capable of attaining the closest union with God. It lives almost always under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. God works in a silent soul without hindrance.

--St. Faustina Kowalska, Diary, 477

QUOTATION: Silence

Never make a noise of any sort in church, except for the greatest necessity.

--St. Philip Neri

QUOTATION: The Talkative Soul

The Lord gave me to know how displeased He is with a talkative soul. I find no rest in such a soul. The constant din tires Me, and in the midst of it the soul cannot discern My voice.

--St. Faustina Kowalska

QUOTATION: Talkativeness

The Holy Spirit does not speak to a soul that is distracted and garrulous. He speaks by His quiet inspirations to a soul that is recollected, to a soul that knows how to keep silence.

--St. Faustina Kowalska

QUOTATION: A Talkative Soul

A talkative soul is empty inside. It lacks both the essential virtues and intimacy with God. A deeper interior life, one of gentle peace and of that silence where the Lord dwells, is quite out of the question.

--St. Faustina Kowalska

QUOTATION: Answering and Keeping Silent

We are sensitive to words and quickly want to answer back, without taking any regard as to whether it is God’s will that we should speak. A silent soul is strong; no adversities will harm it, if it perseveres in silence. The silent soul is capable of attaining the closest union with God.

--St. Faustina Kowalska

QUOTATION: Silence

A soul that has never tasted the sweetness of inner silence is a restless spirit which disturbs the silence of others. I have seen many souls in the depths of hell for not having kept their silence.

--St. Faustina Kowalska

QUOTATION: Silence

Only the silent hear and those who do not remain silent do not hear.

-- Josef Pieper

QUOTATION: Anger

When you feel the assaults of passion and anger, then it is time to be silent as Jesus was silent in the midst of His ignominies and suffering.

--St. Paul of the Cross