Abbot Arsenius said that he often regretted because he spoke, but never because he was silent. By this, he meant that silence is an internal discipline that must be heeded. “If someone does not make mistakes in his speech, he is already perfect, able to keep his whole self under control. When we put a bridle in the horse’s mouth so that they obey us, we also control their whole body. And look at the ships: they are so large, and driven by strong winds, yet they allow themselves to be steered by a tiny rudder where the helmsman wills. So even the tongue is a small member, but it can boast of great things. See how a small fire, and how big a forest it ignites! Even the tongue is fire, it can cause any evil. It is the tongue between our members that can defile the whole person, it sets our whole life on fire because it is itself set on fire by hell. All kinds of beasts, birds, reptiles, and sea animals can be and are tamed by men, but no man can tame the tongue. It is an evil that will not rest, full of deadly poison. With it we glorify the Lord and the Father, and with it we curse people, created in the image of God. From the same mouth comes blessing and cursing” (James 3:2-10).
St. Teresa says: “It is a great offense if a sister makes a habit of not keeping silence.” The Desert Fathers laid great stress on this point. For example: “Every work will be a source of abundance, but talking is a frequent source of poverty.” “He who talks many harms his soul”. “A fool acts like an ignoramus. The wise speak sparingly. Much talk is a sign of stupidity. The voice of a fool multiplies words and arguments”. “What you are really doing, do in silence and in prayer.” – He bases all these statements on the verse from Scripture: “There is no lack of guilt in verbiage” (Prov. 10:19). Too much talking always reveals a certain lack of work, idleness. St. Paul reminds us of this in connection with young widows: “They go about idly from house to house, but not only are they idle, but they are also slanderous, worrying about things they have nothing to do” (1 Tim 5:13).
We’re bombarded with a “flood of words” through mass media. I question whether I can survive without the radio – and for how long. Our culture has become consumed by an endless array of words, each vying for our attention: sweet and alluring, matter-of-fact or angry. Yet, despite the creative power of the Word that formed the world, our own words have lost their potency. This is evident in our innate distrust of the words we hear; we dismiss them as empty phrases, unrelated to truth. Paradoxically, we continue to indulge in them. When trying to express a genuine emotion, we often struggle to find the right words, as they’ve grown stale. In an attempt to overcome this, we resort to artifices like formalities, provocative language, and overly sentimental words that masquerade as intimacy.
But the feeling remains trapped inside. We do not know how to express it in truth and how to express it alone. This is the heart of the problem: if there is no solitude, there is no silence. If both are missing, the truth is missing. Silence is the highest expression of solitude of the heart. Silence turns solitude into reality. And if we do not succumb to the temptation to listen to ourselves, that is, to the complacency of anti-silence, we avoid those countless ways of formalism, provocation, optimism and magnification. All those words that do not give life and are not born in a heart that has withstood the test of the fire of solitude in constancy and feeling. It is not born of a fertile heart.
True words are born in silence. Even more: the very core of the word must be tacit. If the word is true, silence nestles in its core. And when the word is spoken, it returns to the abysmal and fertile silence from which it arose. The Word dies to make way for the love, beauty, and truth it brought. St. Augustine expressed it penetratingly: “John was the voice, but the Lord in the beginning was the Word.” John with a voice in a limited time, Christ with a Word, from the beginning eternal… A voice without a word beats in the ears, but it does not educate the heart… The Word that the sound of the voice brought to you is already in your heart, without leaving mine. Does it not seem to you, then, that the sound itself, when it has conveyed the word to you, says: He must grow, and then I must shrink? The sound of a voice rose to perform its service, and disappeared as if to say, Thus my joy is complete. Let’s keep the word, let’s not lose the word born in the very heart” (Sermo 293,3).
Our word, our speaking, which is born of silence, must be content with death as it returns to the silence from which it arose. Silence teaches us to speak, it gives strength to the word, which, thanks to the silence it contains, is not just noise (cf. 1 Cor 13:1). Silence teaches us to speak, because it preserves in our interior a pious enthusiasm, attention to the Holy Spirit. Silence cultivates the life of the Holy Spirit. The Diadoch of Photica says in this connection: “If the door to the bathroom is left open, the inner warmth disappears just as the soul succumbs to the desire to speak too much, even if what it says is good, and its inner presence disappears through the door of the voice.” Deprived of right thoughts, she impetuously acquaints anyone nearby with her train of thought because she no longer has the Holy Spirit to protect her from dissolving into thoughts devoid of sense imagery. Dobro runs away from talkativeness and is alien to wild fantasizing.
Great is silence at the right time, it becomes the father of penetrating thoughts.” And elsewhere he says that the heart that wants to keep the divine life within itself “eagerly strives for silence.” However, it is a “silence that does not bother the other”, as St. Teresa. The desert fathers associated their life as pilgrims with silence. They said: Peregrinatio est tacere – Pilgrimage consists in silence. This journey “seeks the true homeland” (cf. Hebrews 11:14) and does not allow itself to be confused by the earthly one. Speaking engages us in the affairs of the world. Our apostolic mission compels us to speak. However, if the silent core that makes us pilgrims is missing in this speaking, we succumb to corruption by the spirit of this world, we pitch a tent in this world. Then we experience that visceral sense of failure that an excess of words leaves in the heart. Words distract us and make us forget that we are pilgrims. It is silence that has the ability to keep us in the state of pilgrims. “I will take heed of my conduct, lest I sin with my tongue; I will put a bridle in my mouth, if the wicked be before me” (Ps 39:2), because I am a pilgrim.
St. Ignatius, when he reports on silence, likes to speak of “tranquility” and “modesty” of the soul. It is significant that he applies all the features of silence to the image of the coadjutor brothers. As if they were supposed to form a silent bastion of the community, so that it would be good to talk to people. There are also Rules of Modesty. However, I rather want to emphasize that St. Ignatius does not mention silence only as a means of spiritual life, prayer, spiritual exercises, etc., but rather aims at the concept of silence, which gives wholeness to the life of a Jesuit. The “quiet,” “modest,” and “silent” Jesuit is not a naive person who excludes from his understanding the voices and noises that reach him. On the contrary, he must be fully aware of all the sounds that knock at the door of his heart, as well as the sounds that come from the same heart, so that he accepts the good ones and rejects the bad ones.
The apostle James speaks of silence when he writes: “If you have bitter enmity and selfishness in your heart, do not boast and do not falsify the truth” (James 3:14). When there is no silence in your heart, but noise, do not show it with a thousand forms of boasting: sarcasm, self-satisfaction, optimism, conceit, slander, feigning annoyance and distress, the need to always talk about something. Bitterness, disordered feelings, resentment, self-centeredness… these are all defects of inner silence and corrupt the truth. And finally: silence is the highest and most common expression of dignity. All the more so in moments of trial and crucifixion, when the body would like to make excuses and avoid the cross. At the moment of greatest injustice, “Jesus was silent” (Mt 26:63; cf. also Is 53:7; Acts 8:32).
The humbled Christ revealed the patience of God and the ageless Trinity in his silence on the cross, as he withstood the call to come down. This silence was a manifestation of the Word, transformed in the face of oppression and injustice. Jesus’ wordless endurance embodied the eternal communion of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, which entered human history. This silent Word, as recounted in John’s Gospel, also found expression in the Mother’s womb, where tenderness dwelled. In Mary’s heart, where memories and reflections were treasured, the Church’s memory resided. In the darkest hour, this incarnate silence declared the dignity of Jesus, and by extension, our own.
