The Silence of Our Blessed Virgin Mother Mary

[springbreeze]

Dear friends

I have spent some time reflecting on the silence of the Mother of God. It has for some time, puzzled me and even annoyed me, that she didn’t say more or that there is very little of her speech recorded in Sacred Scripture! I wanted to search her heart, mind and spirit by having a word or two more from her so that I may learn more and develop in discipleship and spirituality by imitation of her and ultimately that she may show me the fruit of her womb and in this aid my salvation to grow more Christ-like.

It suddenly came to me in meditation, that her silence is her witness to all that Christ Jesus is, her neither adding to nor taking away, but silent and constant with the Lord and He with her. She is absorbed in Him, constantly contemplating Him in her heart. Her being is His and at His disposal, ‘Be it done to me according to Thy word’.

In her silence she speaks volumes, she tells me to listen, she tells me to meditate, she tells me to simply silently follow behind my Lord, she tells me to trust, she tells me to immerse myself in Him so that my ‘self’ no longer exists, but that He exists in me and she tells me to be watchful, ever observant.

I would like to read your reflections on the silence of our Blessed Virgin Mother Mary.

As I spend further time meditating on her silence and the fruits of silence in imitation of our Blessed Virgin Mother Mary, I’ll just pop them up here in this thread. In this age of opinion and mass communication I am beginning to think that there is a growing need for silence and in that silence communicating with God…prayer.

I am hoping that through sharing these small insights in prayer we may be better able to love and serve God through imitation of our Mother Mary

God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa

 

[trailblazer]

Amen! that quiet pondering could teach us all allot and the few things she did say and did spoke volumes. God bless!

Love & peace in Christ,
Bob

 

[Jade]

springbreeze:

Dear friends

I have spent some time reflecting on the silence of the Mother of God. It has for some time, puzzled me and even annoyed me, that she didn’t say more or that there is very little of her speech recorded in Sacred Scripture! I wanted to search her heart, mind and spirit by having a word or two more from her so that I may learn more and develop in discipleship and spirituality by imitation of her and ultimately that she may show me the fruit of her womb and in this aid my salvation to grow more Christ-like.

It suddenly came to me in meditation, that her silence is her witness to all that Christ Jesus is, her neither adding to nor taking away, but silent and constant with the Lord and He with her. She is absorbed in Him, constantly contemplating Him in her heart. Her being is His and at His disposal, ‘Be it done to me according to Thy word’.

In her silence she speaks volumes, she tells me to listen, she tells me to meditate, she tells me to simply silently follow behind my Lord, she tells me to trust, she tells me to immerse myself in Him so that my ‘self’ no longer exists, but that He exists in me and she tells me to be watchful, ever observant.

I would like to read your reflections on the silence of our Blessed Virgin Mother Mary.

As I spend further time meditating on her silence and the fruits of silence in imitation of our Blessed Virgin Mother Mary, I’ll just pop them up here in this thread. In this age of opinion and mass communication I am beginning to think that there is a growing need for silence and in that silence communicating with God…prayer.

I am hoping that through sharing these small insights in prayer we may be better able to love and serve God through imitation of our Mother Mary

God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa

Teresa,

How beautiful! Thank you for sharing these insights. The words that I bolded really spoke to me- thank you again!

I agree- we need more silence!
I went on a retreat this past year and unbeknownst to me, it was a silent retreat- so it came as a shock to me…but I spent three wonderfully rich and powerful days in total silence, only opening my mouth to praise God in daily Mass.
I didn’t want to leave!

From then on, I try to seclude myself every week. I wrap myself in silence’s cloak and not say a word for hours, even days. I don’t listen to music or watch TV. As I go about my daily work, I find that it is very possiable to still sit in silence and contemplate God. I can still speak, yet there is this deep inner peace and stillness that I do not come out of. I love that feeling.

But I do not mean to detract from your thread on pondering the Blessed Mother’s silence. Maybe this is in some way, the silence she lived as well? But to a deeper degree of course!

your insights have really made my day- what a wonderful way to start my morning with my thoughts turned to Mama Mary!

Thanks!

Jade

 

[Fergal]

The Blessed Virgin Mary the first and greatest contemplative.

Through her silence she became eloquent with the ineffable.

 

[DBT]

In her silence she speaks volumes, she tells me to listen, she tells me to meditate, she tells me to simply silently follow behind my Lord, she tells me to trust, she tells me to immerse myself in Him so that my ‘self’ no longer exists, but that He exists in me and she tells me to be watchful, ever observant.

Mary is the true model for all contemplatives . . . silence is where she lived . . . silence is where she “heard” God and learned to love Him in the depth of her heart.

We ALL need this silence . . . no matter what our state in life. Seeking time to be alone with Him *in silence * is the surest path for growth in prayer.

Jade, I really enjoyed your comments about how you’ve tried to find “silent moments” in your life.

 

[DBT]

Jade:

I try to seclude myself every week. I wrap myself in silence’s cloak and not say a word for hours, even days.

Didn’t catch this comment the first time around. Just be careful, though. Silence doesn’t mean withdrawl from things or necessarily an “absence” of words for an extended period. It is more of an inward looking into the heart . . . and these “lookings” can be very brief in duration. Most important, we can find these silent moments repeatedly in our day . . . even in the most hectic, active of lives. That, I believe, is Mary’s example to us.

Sorry if I misunderstood what you meant by this.

Dave.

 

[Joysong]

DBT:

Silence doesn’t mean withdrawl from things. We can find silent moments repeatedly in our day . . . even in the most hectic, active of lives.

What I love about our Blessed Mother is that, even though scripture tells us that she “pondered all these things in her heart,” she was fully a human mother, with all the duties attendant to her vocation. I love to picture the holy family “doing routine things,” and wish I could be a mouse in the corner observing it all — Jesus carving furnishings in the shop, Joseph giving Him instruction, Mary cooking their dinner, washing clothes, tidying their home, celebrating weddings with relatives, etc.

My intuition is that she was still in union with God, the Spouse of her soul, even when she was not actively thinking about Him. I think that is truly the real goal of prayer — that we take the fruit of it outward in loving and serving those whom God places in daily path. That is the only test of whether or not our prayer is authentic; i.e., how much we truly are able to bear with and love our neighbor for God’s sake. (And for us Carmelites, the only true test of union, according to St. Teresa in the 5th mansion)

Another thought came to mind, as I pondered the beautiful Great Amen we assent to at Mass, "Through HIM, with HIM, and in HIM, in the unity of the Spirit, all glory and honor are God’s. I think Mary, living with and contemplating constantly her Divine Son as He grew before her eyes, and as she observed His deeds in ministry, is the goal of our Amen, too. We do all things in and through Christ, in whom the Father is well pleased. Thus is our Father glorified through our works!

AMEN! and AMEN!

Carole

 

[springbreeze]

Joysong:

What I love about our Blessed Mother is that, even though scripture tells us that she “pondered all these things in her heart,” she was fully a human mother, with all the duties attendant to her vocation. I love to picture the holy family “doing routine things,” and wish I could be a mouse in the corner observing it all — Jesus carving furnishings in the shop, Joseph giving Him instruction, Mary cooking their dinner, washing clothes, tidying their home, celebrating weddings with relatives, etc.

My intuition is that she was still in union with God, the Spouse of her soul, even when she was not actively thinking about Him. I think that is truly the real goal of prayer — that we take the fruit of it outward in loving and serving those whom God places in daily path. That is the only test of whether or not our prayer is authentic; i.e., how much we truly are able to bear with and love our neighbor for God’s sake. (And for us Carmelites, the only true test of union, according to St. Teresa in the 5th mansion)

Another thought came to mind, as I pondered the beautiful Great Amen we assent to at Mass, "Through HIM, with HIM, and in HIM, in the unity of the Spirit, all glory and honor are God’s. I think Mary, living with and contemplating constantly her Divine Son as He grew before her eyes, and as she observed His deeds in ministry, is the goal of our Amen, too. We do all things in and through Christ, in whom the Father is well pleased. Thus is our Father glorified through our works!

AMEN! and AMEN!

Carole

Dear Carole

I believe Our Blessed Virgin Mother Mary actively thought of God constantly and I think it is possible to live an active life (as you describe so beautifully) as Mary’s domestic life with Jesus and St Joseph and also to live in the constant friendship of God by complete recollection to Him in active thought, all things are a reflection of Him, human love moreso than anything else.

Whatever our state in life that life is a life of prayer and for it to be as such, it is a life constantly recollected to God, though we may purposefully sit or kneel and meditate and pray at times for specific reasons, prayer is not subject to ‘set times’, this is simply a specific nature of a specific prayer, all other prayer outside of these times still remain prayer.

I’m thinking of those times we make to be silent and close our eyes and ears to the world to pray, this is a specific prayer. But those times we are not silent , those times we are working or enjoying the company of friends etc, those times still remain silent by their very nature of being a prayer and by God’s Presence and constant rememberance of His Presence. I like what Dave posted in respect of that. This silence is not simply a matter of sitting in the quiet, it is about BEING quiet interiorly, be silent interiorly, this allows the ‘pondering in the heart of all these things’

It is a hinderance to some extent to be noisy interiorly. Above the internal din, we cannot hear what God is speaking to us. In order to practice this silence, we must first of all embrace silence exteriorly and this is a difficult lesson, silence can seem forboding or awkward, easily leading to a soul giving up on the practise of silence, it can seem a void and an emptiness, when actually it is the richest field and pasture.

I think it is important to observe silence exteriorly even when a soul has be gifted by God to master it and is developing interior silence. It is a discipline that will always lead to deep prayer. It is also important to use silence as a tool for consideration in the Lord of all words spoken and all deeds made. To keep a guard over the words that fall from our lips and where possible use as few words as we need to.

Having said all of that… no-one wants to think that we don’t want to talk to them…so it is all things in moderation and good measure.

God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa

 

[springbreeze]

Also we all love to be listened to, the soul that is not speaking is listening and the soul that listens learns and loves much.

Our Blessed Virgin Mother Mary heard ‘all these things’ and they entered straight into her heart due to her interior and exterior silence, they had no din to battle through, they entered straight into her heart and she treasured, honoured and loved them there in contemplation of them.

I have seen it often construed that someone who does not have much to say, but listens intently is a soul that obviously doesn’t have much to offer one way or another…on the contrary… a soul that says little, but listens in silence is a soul that loves much, caring to take the time to deny ‘self’, the urge to speak, caring to look to the other and to open their heart and listen.

Even still our Blessed Virgin Mother Mary is listening to her children and in doing so, loves much.

Her silence is her approval.

God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa

 

[awalt]

Springbreeze I think you hit it dead on. I would add, Mother Mary is humble, and I always liked this definition of humility - when you appreciate the act performed equally, whether it was done by you or someone else (some people think humble means minimizing what you do yourself, even if it’s of value, which it is not!)

Mary is humble because she greatly worships Jesus and acknoweldges the importance of being His mother, but I believe she thinks God could have picked another, but when picked she would do the best job possible.,

So her humility plkus the points Springbreeze makes about basically not wanting to dilute the Word, suffices.

I assume we could also add God did not pick her to evangelize the Word in the Gospel, that was for the Apostles…

 

[Giannawannabe]

I know this doesn’t sound as articulate as some of you here. I find that I have a NEED to have silence. I am married with 3 young children, a parttime job, and various volunteer type activities. I yearn to be with our Lord in peace. I take walks through the woods and take time to enjoy nature and am able to feel closer to our Lord in this way. Many times during the hustle and bustle of daily life, it gives me peace to think of the times I walk with the Lord.

 

[Jade]

DBT:

Didn’t catch this comment the first time around. Just be careful, though. Silence doesn’t mean withdrawl from things or necessarily an “absence” of words for an extended period. It is more of an inward looking into the heart . . . and these “lookings” can be very brief in duration. Most important, we can find these silent moments repeatedly in our day . . . even in the most hectic, active of lives. That, I believe, is Mary’s example to us.

Sorry if I misunderstood what you meant by this.

Dave.

Hi Dave!

You are right, silence does not mean withdrawl from things at all. It’s a inner state. By my comment, I didn’t mean that I seclude myself from daily life- I still go through my day as I do everyday, but there is a stillness within me that is not usually there, a reflection, an awareness of God.

No problem about misunderstanding me.

God Bless!

Jade