In our refectory during mealtime, spiritual books are read aloud to the community. This week we’ve begun a new one: the popular new text by Robert Cardinal Sarah. The Power of Silence is its title, and even those first few words alone carry with them great grace and insight.
Cardinal Sarah was deeply influenced by his time recently spent at the Carthusian Charterhouse near Grenoble, France, and the writing of this book flowed from his experience. It was a time of discernment and prayer, a time of listening to “what the Spirit has to say to the churches” (Rev. 2:29). Now, his readers can also enter into his experience and deepen their love for silence, which is the very atmosphere of divine things.
While this book is meant to touch the lives of laypersons and religious alike, it may also be of particular value to those discerning a religious vocation. For God speaks in the stillness, and uses this medium to move the human heart according to his will. Let us pray, then, that all may harness this Power of Silence to better learn the ways of God!
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