Miscellany originated as an occasional ministry formation newsletter when I was diocesan ministry educator in Waiapu NZ a few years ago. What was originally intended as an in-house publication attracted a wider following. I am still strongly drawn by many of the themes I wrote about at the time - lectio divina, life-long spiritual formation, liturgy, insights from the Benedictine and Cistercian tradition - and so have decided to resume an occasional Miscellany.
One of my reshaped learnings so far this Lent is about silence. Silence was easy to take for granted at my rural Hawke's Bay home, and was punctuated only by animals and occasionally farm machinery. Now in central Sydney, the degree to which constant sound is absent better describes anything approaching an experience of physical silence.
At evening prayer we are currently choosing readings from A Lent Sourcebook (in the very fine Chicago archdiocese Liturgy Training Publications series). Yesterday included this option:
Enter into the mystery of silence.
Your goal in life is not to hold your tongue but to love, to know yourself and to receive your God. You need to learn how to listen, how to retreat into the depths, how to rise above yourself.
Silence leads you to all this, so seek it lovingly and vigilantly. But beware of false silence: Yours should be neither taciturnity nor glumness, nor should it be systematic or inflexible, or torpid. Authentic silence is the gateway to peace, adoration and love.
Live your silence, don't merely endure it.
This was written by Pierre-Marie Delfieux, founder of the 20th century Paris urban monastic community, in A City Not Forsaken: Jerusalem Community Rule of Life (DLT 1985). I was reassured to know that such words about silence could come from within a busy noisy city and were not confined to the quiet countryside, as I read them against a backdrop of the dull hum of traffic passing our apartment and the sound of the crane on the building site across the road.
Please bear with me in these tentative technical steps into blogwriting. I'll try to be mindful of the (Cistercian?) saying to speak only if it improves the silence.
One of my reshaped learnings so far this Lent is about silence. Silence was easy to take for granted at my rural Hawke's Bay home, and was punctuated only by animals and occasionally farm machinery. Now in central Sydney, the degree to which constant sound is absent better describes anything approaching an experience of physical silence.
At evening prayer we are currently choosing readings from A Lent Sourcebook (in the very fine Chicago archdiocese Liturgy Training Publications series). Yesterday included this option:
Enter into the mystery of silence.
Your goal in life is not to hold your tongue but to love, to know yourself and to receive your God. You need to learn how to listen, how to retreat into the depths, how to rise above yourself.
Silence leads you to all this, so seek it lovingly and vigilantly. But beware of false silence: Yours should be neither taciturnity nor glumness, nor should it be systematic or inflexible, or torpid. Authentic silence is the gateway to peace, adoration and love.
Live your silence, don't merely endure it.
This was written by Pierre-Marie Delfieux, founder of the 20th century Paris urban monastic community, in A City Not Forsaken: Jerusalem Community Rule of Life (DLT 1985). I was reassured to know that such words about silence could come from within a busy noisy city and were not confined to the quiet countryside, as I read them against a backdrop of the dull hum of traffic passing our apartment and the sound of the crane on the building site across the road.
Please bear with me in these tentative technical steps into blogwriting. I'll try to be mindful of the (Cistercian?) saying to speak only if it improves the silence.
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