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by
Robert Sarah
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August 18, 2017 - February 9, 2018
What is it then that this desire and this inability proclaim to us, but that there was once in man a true happiness of which there now remain to him only the mark and empty trace, which he in vain tries to fill from all his surroundings, seeking from things absent the help he does not obtain in things present? But these are all inadequate, because the infinite abyss can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object, that is to say, only by God Himself.
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For Joseph Rassam, as for Robert Cardinal Sarah, “although speech characterizes man, silence is what defines him, because speech acquires sense only in terms of this silence.” This is the beautiful and important message of The Power of Silence.
O Jesus, meek and humble of heart, Make my heart like yours. From self-will, deliver me, O Lord. From the desire of being esteemed, deliver me, O Lord. From the desire of being loved, deliver me, O Lord. From the desire of being extolled, deliver me, O Lord. From the desire of being honored, deliver me, O Lord. From the desire of being praised, deliver me, O Lord. From the desire of being preferred to others, deliver me, O Lord. From the desire of being consulted, deliver me, O Lord. From the desire of being approved, deliver me, O Lord.
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“The Father spoke one Word, which was His Son, and this Word He always speaks in eternal silence, and in silence must It be heard by the soul.”
God achieves everything, acts in all circumstances, and brings about all our interior transformations. But he does it when we wait for him in recollection and silence.
If we observe the great works, the most powerful acts, the most extraordinary and striking interior transformations that God carries out in man, we are forced to admit that he works in silence.
God has uttered his Word in the soul in silence. In that same silent darkness, the subsequent developments of grace generally come.
In silence, through the sacrament of Holy Orders, a man becomes not only an alter Christus, another Christ, but much more: he is ipse Christus, Christ himself.
Silence is the law of the divine plans.
Silence is not an absence. On the contrary, it is the manifestation of a presence, the most intense of all presences.
we should always make sure to be Mary before becoming Martha.
For man can encounter God in truth only in silence and solitude, both interior and exterior.
The desire to see God is what urges us to love solitude and silence. For silence is where God dwells. He drapes himself in silence.
Once we have acquired interior silence, we can transport it with us into the world and pray everywhere.
The life of silence must be able to precede the active life.
Without the capacity for silence, man is incapable of hearing, loving, and understanding the people around him.
noise is a dangerous, deceptive medicine, a diabolic lie that helps man avoid confronting himself in his interior emptiness.
Sounds and emotions detach us from ourselves, whereas silence always forces man to reflect upon his own life.
Popular, tasteless music is performed in an uproar, a pandemonium of shouting, a diabolical, exhausting commotion. It is not something one can listen to; it deafens man and makes him drunk with emptiness, confusion, and despair.
definition of music. “It is”, he says, “art so ordering sound as to reach the soul, inspiring a love of virtue.”
Silence is man’s greatest freedom. No dictatorship, no war, no barbarism can take this divine treasure away from him.
the man who talks too much is a ship adrift.
True witness is expressed by the silent, pure, radiant example of the sanctity of our life.
Keeping quiet has the appearance of being a weakness, a sort of ignorance or lack of will.
The man who speaks is celebrated, and the silent man is a poor beggar in whose presence there is no need even to raise one’s eyes.
the media love to listen to them in order to reecho their ineptitudes, particularly if they declare themselves in favor of the new posthumanist ideologies, in the realm of sexuality, the family, and marriage.
Bishops who scatter the sheep that Jesus has entrusted to them will be judged mercilessly and severely by God.
Even today, our pastoral strategies without any demands, without an appeal to conversion, without a radical return to God, are paths that lead nowhere. They are politically correct games that cannot lead us to the crucified God, our true Liberator.
At the dawn of this new millennium, the silent ones are the persons most useful to society, because—creatures of silence and interiority—they live out the authentic dimension of man.
Man must stand silently before God and tell him: God, since you gave me knowledge and the desire for perfection, lead me continually toward the absolute of love. Make me love more and more, because you are the wise artisan who leaves no work unfinished, as long as the clay of the creature does not oppose you with obstacles and refusals. I surrender wordlessly to you, O Lord. I want to be docile and malleable like clay in your hands, for you are a skillful, benevolent potter.
