Chapter 42: The great silence after Compline
Silence should be sought at all times by monks and nuns and this is especially important for them at night time.
(From para. 1 of Ch. 42 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry OSB, 1997.)
Silence is an interior knowing that I rest in God at all times.
It is difficult to be silent in the evening, after a day of work. The mind and senses want to be entertained and continue the stimulation. They are over-stimulated with meetings and conversations. Benedict is always there in his Rule with prescriptions like a good doctor. The patient has to take them. Cultivate silence, Benedict says. John Main goes further and describes the silence that awaits me as "sense-less" and "fertile" and "purifying". All I have to do is be there.
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