Silence, Where the Word of God Dwells

 Madeleine DelbrÊl

We do not need to find silence; we already have it. The day we lack silence is the day we have not learned how to keep it.

All the noises around us cause much less disturbance than we ourselves do.

The real noise is the echo things make within us. It is not necessarily talking that breaks silence. Silence is the place where the Word of God dwells; if we limit ourselves to repeating this word, then we can speak without ceasing to be silent.

Monasteries appear to be the place of praise and the place of the silence that praise requires.

In the street, crushed by the crowd, we make our souls into so many caves of silence wherein the word of God can dwell and resound.

In those crowds marked by the sins of hatred, lust, and drunkenness, we find a desert of silence, and we recollect ourselves here with great ease, so that God can ring out his name:

“Vox clamans in deserto.”*

*A voice crying in the wilderness.

We, the Ordinary People of the Streets