Silence

Holy Week Retreat-in-Place 2020 Entering the Silence that Changes Me

A little while back, a book showed up in my monastery mailbox without a note or any kind of explanation. The book was a kind of self-help book, identifying a character defect and offering a program for addressing this defect. Seeing the title, I immediately took offense. I resorted to blaming and accusing a particular person, someone whom I had no good reason (really) to identify as the culprit, and of whose motive (were he the perpetrator) I had no inkling. Fortunately, I discovered the book just before morning prayers and so was forced to enter into the silence and stillness of Vigils and Lauds. And it wasn’t too long, maybe three minutes, after the offices began that I had a moment of grace and asked myself, “Why would someone put this book in your box? Do you have this character defect?” And, all of the sudden, because I was willing to investigate the matter, I was open to it, a memory came back to me from just a few months before: me going to this very brother I had in mind, having to apologize to him and ask his forgiveness because of the very defect addressed in the book. This was a wonderful moment for me. Independent of the origins of the book or reasons for its advent, I felt my entrenched anger just begin to collapse in the cold light of the truth about my person—I DO need to work on this negative quality! And the resistance in my heart to simply admitting that I needed to work on a part of myself, perceived

The silence in the Church is palpable – not an appalling silence, yet a silence that pierces...God is revealing to us his plan of salvation, and making present to us the very life he desires to offer us – your situation in this moment is where God is choosing to reveal his love to you. - Abbot James Albers Holy Thursday Homily

by Br. Leven Harton

by another person, it, too, began to melt— very gently, very peacefully. The desire to accuse and blame diminished too and, even though I still had a little bit of a hurt ego, I was able to allow the judgment against me in. I was able to receive it and I felt freer in being able to receive it. But free from what? Probably fear. My anger, I think, had more to do with feeling uncomfortable with being seen as deficient, fear that this weighing of my person was true. To be free from that fear in acceptance was wonderful. Speaking and teaching are This event has brought me back to a key distinction the master’s that one of my confreres, Br. Karel, has made. He task; the notes that St. Benedict’s chapter on silence is titled De Taciturnitate, which disciple is to be silent and is often translated as “On Silence.” But that is not a listen. very precise translation. The word for silence in Latin is silentium. Taciturnitate is - Rule of St. Benedict 6:6 better rendered, “restraint of speech,” like someone who is (in English) taciturn. And in that chapter of the Rule you can read, “Speaking and teaching are the master’s task; the disciple is to be silent and listen.” Br. Karel explained that St. Benedict sees silence not as an experience of going out to Walden Pond and fleeing the distractions and noise of others, achieving a “zero” on the decibel scale. Rather, silence in the monastery has to do with me being silent—me not putting myself, my ideas, my noise out there. Silence, as a Benedictine virtue, is not avoiding being bothered—it’s not running from what is bothering me. It’s being still, even if we are being bothered, because we are being bothered. I was lucky to be forced into this kind of silence at prayers after finding the book in my box. Unable to turn my attention away from prayers and concentrate on all the ways I’d been wronged, I was positioned to sit with what was bothering me. In the early monastic tradition, Abba Moses has a pithy saying that expresses the optimism that I can learn from even painful and bothersome situations: ‘Go, sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything.’ Staying in place, in silence, with one’s troubles is not consigning oneself to doom or destruction. At least it does not have to be a defeat. Fr. Julian Carron, the leader of the movement Communion

Hope deferred makes the heart sick. - Proverbs 13:12

and Liberation, contributed to a conference in Florence last year. The conference was titled Solitude, the Enemy. He offered these words:

Depending on the way we live, solitude can be either a condemnation or a victory. It is a fork in the road... [A] person chooses to either “be alone,” in other words to temporarily separate from people and things in order to discover the meaning of himself, or to “isolate oneself,” closing in on oneself because there is nothing outside of oneself to discover. The posture of silence is embracing our being alone as an assistance to us, a pathway to receiving. In taking up this tool, we find a way forward, out of our own feelings of defeat. Receiving the questioning that our lives inevitably mete out to us is not to assume a posture of good “Catholic guilt.” Let me recall my experience after I realized that I had deserved to receive that little book in my box from whomever: I was relieved. My anger dissipated, my fear receded, and the only thing left was a little bit of a sting to my pride, knowing that I was not so holy as I thought. As it turned out, the patient confrontation with this awful realization about myself was less devastating than I had originally anticipated. The discomfort that came to me, through what I had perceived at first to be a judgment against me, was just a phase of engaging reality—it was just part of the total experience. And it passed in about three minutes. My fear, fortified by my instinctual recoiling from looking at myself in a negative light, was worse than the actual reality. I was not even really angry in that moment, I was more fearful. The rest of that experience, in fact, was a growing acceptance of myself—an acquiescence to being taught by the book that was given to me. So, inhabiting a posture of silence is not a neurotic or scrupulous self-examination that leads us deeper and deeper into our problems, all the while alienating us from God and from our true self. The practice of a personal silence in the face of reality is a first step toward authentic understanding and wisdom. It leads us to what Fr. Michael Casey has called, “Living in the Truth”—that is, humility. He described it like this: “The fruit of humility is naturalness. Being at home with ourselves. Being ourselves. It begins subtly in the depths of our spirits, but in the course of a lifetime evangelizes all levels of our being until it becomes outward, visible, communicable, (Living in the Truth, 25).” We get to be ourselves in the kind of growth I am talking about. All of this presumes a real trust in reality, a real trust in God’s nearness to us. Abba Moses did not have this when he first entered the monastic way. An earlier tale from his life goes like this:

“It happened that Abba Moses was struggling with the temptation of fornication. Unable to stay any longer in the cell, he went and told Abba Isidore. The old man exhorted him to return to his cell. But he refused, saying, ‘Abba, I cannot.’ Then Abba Isidore took Moses out onto the terrace and said to him, ‘Look towards the west.’ He looked and saw hordes of demons flying about and making a noise before launching an attack. Then

Abba Isidore said to him, ‘Look towards the east.’ He turned and saw an innumerable multitude of holy angels shining with glory. Abba Isidore said, ‘See, these are sent by the Lord to the saints to bring them help, while those in the west fight against them. Those who are with us are more in number than they are.’ Then Abba Moses gave thanks to God, plucked up courage, and returned to his cell.” What gives Abba Moses the courage to live in his cell and to embrace the silence is a recognition of God’s power and nearness. This memory of God’s work in our lives is the foundation for us to accept the silence that can change us.

Retreatant Question: If you experience anxiety, fear, or discouragement in solitude and silence how do you get out of it? Do you have any advice or a specific prayer?

Br. Leven: Take your struggles before God first, but also share your struggles with another person. Each time I recount my own struggles they become more real – I start to gain wisdom just in trying to relate my challenges. If I am overmatched by reality and challenges I find that I need to be like Abba Moses and seek counsel (even if it means I’m just going to return to my room.) For me, I found relief when I became willing; and there was relief in encountering my own weakness and coming to the truth.

Watch Br. Leven’s talk with Q&A or read the unabridged version at Kansasmonks.org/leventalk Have questions? Email us at info@kasnsasmonks.org