Notable Quotes/Faith Filled Friday: Quotes from The Power of Silence

This is a combination “Notable Quotes” and “Faith Filled Friday.”

 A few months ago I had several posts from The Power of Silence by Robert Cardinal Sarah.  You can find those posts here:

Part 1 here: 

Part 2 here: 

Part 3 here:

Cardinal Sarah was just so quotable I started jotting down some of the really great quotes out of his book.  I present them here for your enjoyment and moment of prayer.  Yes, reading spiritual quotes is a form of prayer.  At least I think so.

From Introduction:

This friendship was born in silence, it grew in silence, and continues to exist in silence.

Silence was the salt that seasoned this story.  Silence had the last word.  Silence was the elevator to heaven.

The silence of night is the most capable of crushing all the dictatorships of noise.

Silence is more important than any other human work.  For it expresses God.

From Chapter One:

There is one great question: how can man really be made in the image of God?  He must enter into silence.

At the heart of man is an innate silence, for God abides in the innermost part of every person.  God is silence, and this divine silence dwells in man.

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. 

We listen in silence; man enters into a silence that is God.

Silence is not an absence.  On the contrary, it is the manifestation of a presence, the most intense of all presences.  

In silence man conquers his nobility and grandeur only if he is on his knees in order to hear and adore God.  It is in the silence of humiliation and self-mortification, by quieting the turmoil of the flesh, by successfully taming the noisy images, by keeping at a distance the dreams, imaginations, and roaring of the world that is always in a whirl, in order to purify himself of all that ruins the soul and separates it from contemplation, that man makes himself capable of looking at God and loving him.

God’s silence is a consuming fire for the man who approaches him.

This age detests the things that silence brings us to: encounter, wonder, and kneeling before God.

In silence there is a collaboration between man and God.

Persons who live in noise are like dust swept along by the wind.

Man must make a choice: God or nothing, silence or noise.

Lack of respect for silence is a form of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

From Chapter Two:

Creation itself is a silent word of God.

In heaven, speech does not exist.  There on high, the blessed communicate with each other without any words.  There is a great silence of contemplation, communion, and love.

The silence of Jesus’ death transforms, purifies, and appeases man.  It causes him to be in communion with the sufferings and death of Christ, to come back fully into the divine life.

From Chapter Three:

Sacred silence is therefore the only truly human and Christian reaction to God when he breaks into our lives.

Sacred silence, laden with the adored presence, opens the way to mystical silence, full of loving intimacy. 

Words bring with them the temptation of the golden calf!  Only silence leads man beyond words, to the mystery, to worship in spirit and in truth.

And how small would God be if we understood him.

From Chapter Four:

There is a time for human action, which is often uncertain, and a time for silence in God, which is truly victorious.  Far from vengeful, noisy, ideological rebellion, I believe in the fruitfulness of silence.  Prayer and silence will save the world.

Unless we seek to suppress all the superficial aspects of our lives, we will never be united with God.  By detaching ourselves from everything superfluous, we enter little by little into a form of silence.

 Modern existence is a propped-up life built entirely on noise, artificiality, and the tragic rejection of God.  From revolutions to conquests, from ideologies to political battles, from the frantic quest for equality to the obsessive cult of progress, silence is impossible.  What is worse: transparent societies are sworn to an implacable hatred of silence, which they regard as contemptible, backward defeat.

A man without silence is a stranger to God, exiled in a distant land that remains at the surface of the mystery of man and the world; but God is at the deepest part of man, in the silent regions his being.

When the soul is detached from the body of the departing person, it rises in an incomparable silence.  The great silence of death is the silence of the soul that travels toward another homeland: the land of eternal life.

All that is from God makes no noise.  Nothing is sudden, everything is delicate, pure, and silent.

From Chapter Five:

Silence is an extremely necessary element in the life of every man.  It enables the soul to be recollected.  It protects the soul against the loss of its identity.  It predisposes the soul to resist the temptation to turn away from itself to attend to things outside, far from God.

Man does not seek silence for the sake of silence.  The desire for silence for its own sake would be a sterile venture, a particularly exhausting aesthetic experience.  In the depths of his soul, man wants the presence and company of God, in the same way that Christ sought his Father in the desert, far from the cries and passions of the crowd. 

A Christian cannot fear silence because he is never alone.  He is with God.  He is in God.  He is for God.  In the silence, God gives me his eyes so as to contemplate him better.  Christian hope is the foundation of the true silent search of the believer.  Silence is not frightening; on the contrary, it is the assurance of meeting God.

Of course these are not all, and they may not even be the best quotes.  These are just some that caught my eye.  Try to set aside some silent time this weekend, and see if it moves you.

The Power of Silence by Robert Cardinal Sarah, Part 3

You can find Part 1 post here: 

And Part 2 here: 

The following is my Goodreads review of Robert Cardinal Sarah’s The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise and some discussion from the board which I participated in. 

The Power of Silence is an important book for our age.  T.S. Eliot in is his masterpiece work, The Four Quartets summarized the state of humanity in the modern world as “Distracted from distraction by distraction.”  Cardinal Sarah has a variation on this theme: that in the modern world a dictatorship of noise has descended upon mankind and, indeed, has enslaved mankind.  This noise has altered our fundamental relationship with God and has led to the pernicious condition of our souls.   Eliot looks at the symptom, distraction; Sarah identifies the infecting virus, noise. 

There is something to be said of this.  I remember many years ago reading about the Native American’s first reaction to the sound of a firearm when first encountering Europeans.  They had never heard a sound so loud that it disturbed to their core.  It was a sound that felt like a cleaving slice.  Nature does not provide any such sound, at least not on a routine basis.  And the modern world is full of such sounds.  We are rarely without sound, rarely allowed to have a wholesome composed time to commute with the divine, and rarely allowed to hear the silence that is God Himself.  Sarah is most eloquent in his metaphors.  “Silence is this powerful dike that controls the tumultuous waters of the world and protects from noises and distractions of all sorts. Silence is a dam that restores a kind of dignity to mankind.”

That dignity is an integrity of being, a wholeness that resists the fragmenting jolts of contemporary life.  In the book, Cardinal Sarah takes us through the dictatorship of noise of our lives, through what it has done to us and to society, and what we can achieve by seeking silence. It is a little haphazardly written—or perhaps more accurately, not written in a linear fashion—and at times it feels he over stretches the argument.  It is not a perfectly written book, and so it may frustrate the reader at times.  But it does not diminish the book’s importance.  It makes a monumental argument against the dissipation of our times.

Some excerpts from our discussion board at Catholic Thought Book Club:

Galicus:

I thought I would hear something about the active and growing Catholic Church in Africa, as described by John Allen in “The Future Church” which we read here not long ago, as this is a book by an African prelate but alas this book sounds entirely European—a compendium of writings by mostly European and Bible land mystics and saints on escaping the world into contemplation and silence. Is it true that Cardinal Sarah left Africa in 2001 and is out of touch with what goes on in the active and growing Catholic Church in Africa?

Me:

Galicius, what made you think this would be about Africa? None of the book descriptions even remotely suggested it. Cardinal Sarah is way more than just an African Cardinal. He was on the short list for the Papacy, and I hold out hope that he may be the next Pope, though he is already 72. Cardinal Sarah has obviously absorbed the entire Catholic tradition.

Is the book European? The book is Catholic, and I don't think African Catholicism is any different, especially in its intellectual foundation. If anything African Catholicism is more traditional Catholic than what European Catholicism has evolved to. This book is of the contemplative tradition, which goes back to the Desert Fathers. However, the book it reminds me the most is Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ. If you get a chance, compare the two. I should dig out my copy and compare as well.

Br. Stabin:

This book is really a challenge to me. To create a silence of the heart. We in the community keep the silence at certain times but how to shut the heart it is really challenging. I know unless keeping the heart and mind in silence we cannot be a prayerful person. We will be like chatterboxes in our prayers and masses.

Me:

I found what you were referring to, paragraphs 48 through 52.

Silence of the heart consists of quieting little by little our miserable human sentiments so as to become capable of having the same sentiments as those of Jesus. (P. 52)

I see what you mean. That is a challenge that I can't imagine I could do.

Kerstin:

"163. I am certain that God gives to each believer a heart capable of hearing the language of creation."

This is a surprising and yet very profound insight:

"166...I am convinced that the problem of contemporary atheism lies first of all in a wrong interpretation of God’s silence about catastrophes and human sufferings. If man sees in the divine silence only a form of God’s abandonment, indifference, or powerlessness, it will be difficult to enter into his ineffable and inaccessible mystery. The more man rejects the silence of God, the more he will rebel against him."

Isn't this the age-old demand of "showing one more sign"; if only "one more sign" is miraculously produced, then I am willing the believe...

Me:

I agree with your comment on 163. I have no doubt on that either. However, given that God doesn't stand in front of us and declare Himself and given that science has developed theories of how the universe came into being, then I can understand how the atheists come to their conclusion. Those theories depend on huge, astronomical probabilities, which in my opinion aren't very likely. But the atheists go in with an outlook of skepticism, and so only weigh the probability based theories rather than a God who guided those probabilities to come to be.

Irene:

In Sarah's section on silence in the liturgy, I appreciated how he pointed out the places in the rubric that calls for silence. My parish has tried to be more aware of keeping silence at various points such as after each reading or after "Let us pray: to encourage more reflection.

He also writes of wanting a reform of the liturgical reform. From some of his comments in this section, I get the impression that he wants to return to the style of liturgy prior to Vatican II. That would not be my hope. He wrote of the Eucharistic Prayer being prayed in silence by the presider. That would not enhance the liturgical experience for me. My mind wonders too easily. I need to hear the prayers to feel engaged.

Me:

While we can all use more silence in our contemplative moments, I can’t help feel that at times Cardinal Sarah is stretching the argument too far. How can you have liturgical service in total silence? And what’s wrong with music to accompany. Beauty is as important as silence and singing is praying twice as St. Augustine said. Yes I agree dancing down the aisle is not appropriate but even Cardinal Sarah acknowledges older people who are lonely should be able to converse after Mass. We are communicative beings. Expressing ourselves, with limitations of course, is not only necessary but human.

The Power of Silence by Robert Cardinal Sarah, Part 2

Having taken you through the Introduction and Chapters I, II, and III in my first post on Robert Cardinal Sarah’s The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise, I continue here with Chapters IV, V, the Conclusion, and the Afterward.

The fourth chapter, titled “God’s Silence in the Face of Evil Unleashed” furthers the understanding of silence as it pertains to evil in the world.  It examines why God is silent in the face of evil, silence as a proper reaction toward evil, and silence in understanding sickness and death. 

Christ alone can give man the strength to confront evil and come to terms with it.  He offers himself as the only power of helping mankind to conquer suffering.  “Apart frpm me you can do nothing” (Jn 15:5).  By the strength of his Cross, he has the power to save mankind.  The most beautiful cry possible is an outburst of love for God.  Suffering is often the expression of immense love.  It is redemptive.  Suffering and sorrow show that we are alive, guiding the physician more precisely in his diagnosis.  It is necessary to accept suffering and to cope with it in silence.  There is no injustice in the world that does not find a prayerful response to God.  (P. 283)

But Sarah emphasizes that silence “is not a form of passivity.”  To fight injustice, man must turn to God and His love.

We must involve God in our combat against injustice.  I like to keep saying that are true weapons are love and prayer.  The silence of prayer is our only equipment for combat.  The silence of invocation, the silence of adoration, the silence of waiting: these are the most effective weapons.  Love alone is capable of putting out the flames of injustice, because God is love.  Loving God is everything.  All the rest has not the slightest value to the extent that it is not transformed and elevated by Christ’s love.  The choice is simple: God or nothing… (P. 292)

While Cardinal Sarah understands man’s rebellion in the face of injustice, he does not support many of the modern approaches to combat such injustice.  In what I find to be one of the most insightful paragraphs summarizing the modern condition, Sarah is repulsed by the noisy struggles from all sides.

Modern existence is a propped-up life built entirely on noise, artificiality, and the tragic rejection of God.  From revolutions to conquests, from ideologies to political battles, from the frantic quest for equality to the obsessive cult of progress, silence is impossible.  What is worse: transparent societies are sworn to an implacable hatred of silence, which they regard as contemptible, backward defeat.  (P. 336)

That paragraph is at the center of the book’s theme. 

The fifth chapter, “Like a Voice Crying Out in the Desert: The Meeting at the Grand Chartreuse” pulls together the various threads that Cardinal Sarah has been developing and comes to answer why search for silence.  Though the themes seem a bit redundant at this point—I think he has answered the same question in every chapter—there is a change in presentation.  A new voice enters the discussion, Dom Dysmas de Lassus, the Prior General of the Carthusians.  Nicholas Diat is still asking questions, but now the two religious answer in a sort of duet.  As the chapter title suggests, the meeting of the three take place at the Grand Chartreuse, the head monastery of the Carthusian religious order.

In an answer to why seek silence, Cardinal Sarah answers bluntly: “The authentic search for silence is the quest for a silent God and for the interior life.  It is the quest for a God who reveals himself in the depths of our being (p. 191).  He continues:

Silence is an extremely necessary element in the life of every man.  It enables the soul to be recollected.  It protects the soul against the loss of its identity.  It predisposes the soul to resist the temptations to turn away from itself to attend to things outside, far from God.

If man wants to become entrenched in the depths of his heart, in that beautiful interior sanctuary, in order to examine himself and to verify the Presence of God within him, if he wants to know and understand his identity, he needs to be silent and to win his interiority.  (p, 192)

Dom Dysmas amplifies this by explaining the Carthusian rule of silence: “In a charterhouse [Carthusian monastery], we seek, not silence, but, rather, intimacy with God by means of silence.  It is the privileged space that will allow for communion; it is on the order of language, but a different language (p. 199).  Cardinal Sarah then cautions that seeking silence has to have meaning.

Man does not seek silence for the sake of silence.  The desire for silence for its own sake would be a sterile venture, a particularly exhausting aesthetic experience.  In the depths of his soul, man wants the presence and company of God, in the same way that Christ sought his Father in the desert, far from the cries and passions of the crowd.  (p. 201)

Cardinal Sarah goes on to assure us not to fear the silence.

A Christian cannot fear silence because he is never alone.  He is with God.  He is in God.  He is for God.  In the silence, God gives me his eyes so as to contemplate him better.  Christian hope is the foundation of the true silent search of the believer.  Silence is not frightening; on the contrary, it is the assurance of meeting God.  (p. 230)

In the formal “Conclusion,” Sarah encourages us “to revolt against the dictatorship of noise, that seeks to break our hearts and our intellect” (p. 240). 

Finally in a short “Afterward,” Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI praises Cardinal Sarah as a spiritual teacher, one “who speaks out of the depths of silence with the Lord, out of his interior union with him, and thus really has something to say to each one of us” (p. 244).

This book does have something to say that is very important to the modern—or shall I call it, postmodern—world.  But will the world listen?  It would be wise if we each in our individual practices listened.  

The Power of Silence by Robert Cardinal Sarah, Part 1

The form of Cardinal Sarah’s The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise is rather odd, or at least different.  The book is facilitated by Nicolas Diat, and apparently the two combined in Cardinal Sarh’s other book, God or Nothing, which I have to admit I have not read.  Nicolas Diat is a French author and journalist who writes of Catholic issues, and Robert Cardinal Sarah, born in French Guinea (known today simply as Guinea) is one of the leading Cardinals in the College of Cardinals.  I believe he was on the short list for the Papacy.  In a way he stands as the intellectual heir to Pope Benedict XVI, which is saying quite a lot to Cardinal Sarah’s acumen.  What makes the form of this book different is that though it’s a book of non-fiction it is not shaped as an evolving argument. 

The form is that of an extended interview.  Diat will ask a question and Cardinal Sarah addresses the question in a discourse, either in a short paragraph or in a lengthy treatise.  Obviously this wasn’t developed as an actual oral interview, but some means of written composition.  At least that’s how it seems to me.  What you get is a non-linear form of argumentation.  It’s almost circular to me.  I don’t mean that as a circular argument, but of circling around a central point.  The central thesis of the book is answered right up front in the very first paragraph of chapter one.  Diat asks the Cardinal how are we to understand silence, and Sarah responds with:

There is one great question: how can man really be in the image of God?  He must enter into silence.

When he drapes himself in silence, as God himself dwells in a great silence, man is close to heaven, or, rather, he allows God to manifest himself in him.  (p.21)

From that central thesis, Diat and Sarah circle around the theme to fully expound all the ramifications, all the nuances, all the richness of the thought, and, indeed, all implications.  So, Diat and Sarah don’t build linearly to a conclusion but circle the heart of the thesis until one is left knowing everything there is to know about the transformative wonder of silence.

The “Introduction” stands outside that interview structure.  Diat sets up what inspired the book, and that was a relationship that had developed between Cardinal Sarah and Carthusian monk Brother Vincent.  Not only are Carthusian monks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carthusians under the practice of limited speech but Brother Vincent had some incurable disease that prevented him from speaking altogether.  So this was a very intense and out of the ordinary friendship, even beyond Brother Vincent’s death.

The friendship was born in silence, it grew in silence, and it continues to exist in silence.

The meetings with Brother Vincent were a fragment of eternity.  We never doubted the importance of each of the minutes spent with him.  Silence made it possible to raise every sentiment toward the most perfect state.  When it was necessary to leave the abbey, we knew that Vincent’s silence would make us stronger to confront the world’s noises.  (p. 10)

Diat goes on to tell that this book could never have been written without Brother Vincent.

He showed us that the silence into which illness had plunged him allowed him to enter ever more deeply into the truth of things.  God’s reasons are often mysterious.  Why did he decide to try so severely a young man who was asking for nothing?  Why such a cruel, violent, and painful sickness?  Why this sublime meeting between a cardinal who had arrived at the summit of the Church and a sick person confined to a room?  Silence was the salt that seasoned this story.  Silence was the elevator to heaven.  (p. 11)

I have to say, that ever since reading that introduction and the first chapter, “God Does Not Speak, but His Voice is Quite Clear” I have looked for moments of complete silence.  It’s actually very difficult to find.  There is always some noise occurring in the background, and that is actually frustrating.  But on those moments of pure silence, which probably don’t last more than a minute except perhaps in the middle of night, I have found that silence to be immensely pleasurable.  It is utterly soothing.  There is something to its power.  Cardinal Sarah is on to something.

Having established that the world’s noise runs contrary to the silence that is God, Cardinal Sarah demonstrates in chapter two (“God Does Not Speak, But His Voice Is Quite Clear”) how God speaks in His silence. 

Creation itself is a silent word of God.  The wordless beauty of nature displays before our eyes the manifold riches of a Father who is ceaselessly present among men.  This devine speech is not audible to ears that are too human; nevertheless, it is the most profound speech of all.  The sun, the moon, and the stars are absolutely silent to our ears, but they are a word and a message essential to our earthly existence.  There is a language of the stars that we can neither know nor comprehend but that God understands perfectly.  (P162)

Cardinal Sarah takes us through God the Father’s silence, the silence of Jesus Christ, and the silence of the Holy Spirit.  He even tales us through the silence of the Blessed Mother and that of her spouse, St. Joseph. 

In the third chapter (“Silence, the Mystery, and the Sacred”) Cardinal Sarah establishes how before the holiness of God, Man is required to be silent. 

Before the divine majesty, we are at a loss for words.  Who would dare speak up  in the presence of the Almighty?  When God reveals his glory to Isaiah, the prophet cries out: “Holy, holy, holy!”  He uses the Hebrew word kadosh, which means holy and sacred at the same time.  Then he exclaims: “I am lost!”  We could just as well translate it: “I am reduced to silence!” (Is 6:5).  (P. 227)

And he develops this further.

Sacred silence is therefore the only truly human and Christian reaction to God when he breaks into our lives.  It seems that God himself teaches us that he expects from us his worship of silent, sacred adoration…Our sacred silence becomes a silence of joy, of intimacy, and of communion: “The words of the wise [are] heard in the quiet” (Eccles 9:17).  (P. 231)

Cardinal Sarah goes on to show the need for silence in our forms of worship and adoration, especially in the liturgy.   

Blog Note: I Haven’t Forgotten my Blog

It’s been a couple of weeks since I last posted.  No I haven’t forgotten.  There have been a number of things that have limited my posting.

First, I’ve gotten a new major project at work, and the start of a major project is labor intense for the project manager.  Once I’ve gotten things rolled into a plan and I’ve got good people working toward that plan, I can go into a more monitor mode.  Until then there are budgets to be put together, funding to be broken out, designs that need to be drawn up, plans that need to be established, contracts that need to be written and sent over to legal, and endless engineering documents to be composed that ensure good engineering process.  Hopefully I can take a step back in a couple of months.  In the meantime, I’m still working the project I was on before, which has become a pain.  So I’m doubly busy.

Second, baseball season!  I’m obsessed with my beloved Baltimore Orioles.  They had a disastrous first month of the season, possibly the worst start in team history.  You would think I would give up after that kind of start.  No, I’m only more obsessed.  I’m convinced this is a good team that had injuries and bad luck, and will bounce back.  It seems like they are finally returning to norm.  They’ve now won six of the last seven, including a 17-1 win yesterday.  However, in a division where the Yankees (I call them the “Stinkees”) and the Red Sox (I call them the “Red Pox”) are off to incredible starts, it does seem that the hole the Orioles dug that first month will be too deep to climb out.  We shall see.  Anyway, when I come home, my first order of business after a tiring day at work and after Matthew runs me ragged with whatever he wants me to do before he goes to bed is to turn on that night’s game.  Baseball is such a joyful pastime, even if your team is underperforming.   

Third, The Catholic Thought Book has been reading G. K. Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man.  It’s been a bit slow for me, not because it’s not a good read—it’s fascinating actually—but because I was burnt out from the long list of reads the month before.  Also, although I’ve taken copious notes, I’m really not sure what I want to say about, or, perhaps more accurately, not sure on how to go about saying something on it.  I’m about two thirds of the way through (the rest of the club has finished) and I still intend to post something on it.  All those notes can’t go to waste.

Here’s what the book club is onto now, if you want to join in or follow my blog posts.  Currently we have as a short two-three week read of Pope Paul VI’s famous papal encyclical Humanae Vitae.  It’s the 50 year anniversary of this enormously important document which confirmed Catholic teaching on reproduction and marital relations.  It stands as a contrast to the sexual revolution that was swirling in the air in 1968 when it was written and published.  It’s not a very long document, only 17 pages.  It won’t take you long to read, and you can read it here from Vatican documents.  I will definitely have a couple of posts on it.

The short read is to fill the time gap while we vote, select, and acquire our next book.  The winner for the next read is The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise, by Robert Cardinal Sarah, one of the cardinals who are on a short list for the next pope.  Everyone who I know who has read this book has raved about it.  I have a friend, Mary Sue, who is a very devout Evangelical Protestant, and she said this in her Goodreads review of this book:

This book moved me. Every once in a while, I come across a book that makes me want to reevaluate everything I know, and this book did that. I absolutely loved the recognition I felt reading this book - despite standing in quite a different corner of Christianity as a young, American, fairly Calvinist woman compared to an established and revered African Catholic cardinal, I could identify many (not all, but many) of Cardinal Sarah's reflections and understandings as ones I've shared and come to love with all my heart. More importantly, he put into words things I've felt so deeply it hurts about the quality of silence and solitude I've loved desperately as a believer. I've not even known that these things could be put into words, but Cardinal Sarah did that.

I don’t know what she is referring to when she says that the book made her “reevaluate everything [she] knows” but that is quite a statement.  I will have to ask her to explain once I have read the book myself.  So if that doesn’t get you to want to read this book, then you have no Catholic blood in your veins.  (I kid.)   By the way, Mary Sue has commented occasionally on my blog and she keeps her own blog, At the Still Point.  This week the Book Club is acquiring the book, next week we start reading, and the week after we discuss the opening sections.  Hope that motivates you. 

Nice to be blogging again.  Bless you all that read these humble posts.