Silence gives you perfect Sound
Presenter: Barbara Ashwell
We Bexley Marists were delighted to gather again for our first meeting for 2007. After our opening prayer and hymn, "Open our Eyes Lord …", we considered how all activity and energy in the Christian Life is rooted in interior solitude and silence. After his Baptism Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where he spent time in solitude and was tested to prepare for his mission. As followers of Jesus we too are shaped into an image and likeness of God by our own personal solitude and silence and "the 'perfect sound' of our compassion comes from the silence of our solitude in which we enter into the compassion of God." (Reading - Fr Craig Larkin, sm p.82) Fr Colin experienced "extraordinary serenity" in meditation where he was touched by the experience of "tasting God " (p.82….) For Fr Colin, the symbol of this experience was Nazareth - the ordinary day to day events of life - while the soul "waited in solitude and silence, where the perfect sound of God's love could be heard."
India has an ancient tradition of contemplative prayer where the deepest prayer takes place not in the head but in the "Cave of the heart". Fr Paul Glynn sm (p.82) likens this to the cave of Bethlehem ....our deepest heart - our spirit - a place where we might not see clearly but where we experience love, commitment and God. "You find your true self in your heart not your head." We then proceeded to try and empty our head of thoughts to experience the "perfect sound of silence" in our own hearts.
Meditation: Silence, awareness, turn off thinking, focus on:
- Sitting with straight back, feet flat on floor, hands resting on knees, eyes closed or almost closed. Feel buttocks on chair, thighs, legs, ankles, toes etc. Concentrate on each part of the body, not thinking but feeling. Feel yourself being held by God……allow yourself be touched by the presence of God…thank you Lord for your gift of feeling.
- Focus on listening - sounds outside the room, listen to the many different sounds, listen to the sound of silence - sounds inside the room, each different sound - listen to the sounds of God in our world - listen to the Lord of creation - listen to the sound of silence……thank you Lord for your gift of hearing.
- Focus on your breathing - air coming in through your nostrils travelling to your lungs, movement of diaphragm, cleansing oxygenated air. Focus on breathing out bad air - letting go of tension, anxieties, etc. Breathe in and out. Feel the breath of the Spirit - the breath of God filling you with life….thank you Lord for your gift of life.
Mary is contemplation in action (John Main OSB) Mary's entire life was lived in the heart - the woman wrapped in silence - her ultimate role to bring the Spirit to us in the silence, to give birth to Jesus in our hearts. Our role is to wait in silence and faith for the utterance of the word within us…. In meditation we must be open to whatever happens, whether there is a sense of God's presence or absence, distractions or silence, everything must be totally accepted in the spirit of Mary's fiat. (Marist Brothers Constitution n.67) and Fr Brown from Graham Greene's play - "If I'd ever really known what prayer was, I would only have had to touch her to give her peace." (p.83 Larkin)
We shared thoughts on being open and alert to the silence that gives us perfect sound and how we need a word or a mantra to help us focus. We finished with the beautiful hymn: "Listen, Ponder, Search for the meaning…" sung by Fr Chris Skinner sm and his mother.
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 Marist Laity Conference April 2008 part2 |
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