Silence of the Heart
Excerpt from No Greater Love, by Mother Teresa
It is difficult to pray if you don’t know how to pray, but we must help ourselves to pray. The first means to use is silence. We cannot put ourselves directly in the presence of God if we do not practice internal and external silence.
The interior silence is very difficult, but we must make the effort. In silence we find new energy and true unity.
The energy of God will be ours to do all things well, and so will the unity of our thoughts with His thoughts, the unity of our prayers with His prayers, the unity of our actions with His actions, of our life with His life. Unity is the fruit of prayer, of humility, of love.
In the silence of the heart God speaks. If you face God in prayer and silence God will speak to you. Then you will that you are nothing. It is only when you realize your nothingness, your emptiness that God can fill you with Himself. Souls of prayer are souls of great silence.
Silence gives us a new outlook on everything. We need silence to be able to touch souls. The essential thing is not what we say but what God says to us and through us. In that silence, He will listen to us; there He will speak to our soul, and there we will hear His voice.
Listen in silence, because if your heart is full of other things you cannot hear the voice of God. But when you have listened to the voice of God in the stillness of your heart, then your heart is filled with God.
This will need much sacrifice, but if we really mean to pray and want to pray we must be ready to do it now. These are only the first steps toward prayer but if we never make the first step with a determination, we will not reach the last one: the presence of God.
This is what we have to learn right from the beginning: to listen to the voice of God in our heart, and then in the silence of the heart God speaks.
Then form the fullness of our hearts, our mouth will have to speak. That is the connection. In the silence of the heart, God speaks and you have to listen.
Then in the fullness of your heart, because it is full of God, full of love, full of compassion, full of faith, your mouth will speak.
Remember before you speak, it is necessary to listen, and only then from the fullness of your heart you speak and God listens.
The contemplatives and ascetics of all ages and religions have sought God in the silence and solitude of the desert, forest, and mountain.
Jesus Himself spent forty days in the desert and the mountains, communing for long hours with the Father in the silence of the night.
We too are called to withdraw at certain intervals into deeper silence and aloneness with God, together as a community as well as personally.
To be alone with Him, not with our books, thoughts, and memories but completely stripped of everything to dwell lovingly in His presence - silent, empty, expectant, and motionless.
We cannot find God in noise or agitation. Nature: trees, flowers, and grass grow in silence. The stars, the moon, and the sun move in silence.
What is essential is not what we say but what God tells us and what He tells others through us. In silence He listens to us; in silence He speaks to our souls.
In silence we are granted the privilege of listening to His voice.
Silence of our eyes.
Silence of our ears.
Silence of our mouths.
Silence of our minds.
… in the silence of the heart
God will speak.
Silence of the heart is necessary so you can hear God everywhere - in the closing of the door, in the person you needs you, in the birds that sing, in the flowers, in the animals.
If we are careful of silence it will be easy to pray. There is so much talk, so much repetition, so much carrying on of tales in words and in writing. Our prayer life suffers so much because our hearts are not silent.
I shall keep the silence of my heart with greater care, so that in the silence of my heart I heart His words of comfort and from the fullness of my heart I comfort Jesus in the distressing disguise of the poor.
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