Letting Silence Lead

Silence is Golden

During Lent we often hear the need to "die to self". It's an ancient concept, one I hold is misleading. It gives the impression that all that is human is tainted, and that the only way to a spiritual life is to kill the human tendencies. Nothing could be more wrong.

Jesus never said we must "choose death". He said we must live in the light of truth. Moses says in Deuteronomy, I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live, by loving the Lord, your God, heeding his voice, and holding fast to him.(30:19).

How do we heed the voice of God? Where is that voice heard? In contemplative prayer. Through contemplative prayer, we will discern which choice leads to life, and which leads to death.

Elizabeth of the Trinity writes The contemplative is a being who lives in the radiance of the Face of Christ, who enters into the mystery of God, not in the light that flows from human thought, but in that created by the word of the Incarnate Word.

Let us retreat into a period of silence and learn contemplative prayer. For contemplative prayer takes us beyond mere human enlightenment. It brings us into the light of the Divine. If we position ourselves daily before the Face of Christ, our choices will reflect life.