Time for God in silence?

  • Thread starter Thread starter zemi
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Z

zemi

Guest
I’ll just ask the question and be silent…🙂 :

Do you have today time for God in silence?
 
My life is noisy, so the silence is often hard to find. The best place that I’ve found to find the silence is at an early morning daily Mass. But I’m not able to go every day when I’m working. And maybe that time is not truly silent, because I’m usually doing the talking…

I was talking last weekend with some other moms and one noted that boys are still called to the priesthood, but their lives are often so noisy and busy that they don’t hear the call. Summer vacation is just beginning here, and I was thinking that maybe I should enforce some “quiet time” every afternoon. Mostly for my sanity, but also so the kids can enjoy a bit of it.
 
acadian said:
Summer vacation is just beginning here, and I was thinking that maybe I should enforce some “quiet time” every afternoon. Mostly for my sanity, but also so the kids can enjoy a bit of it.
Click to expand...
I think that is an excellent idea. People, especially kids, in today’s society need to learn how to be with themselves, quiet and alone. We don’t always have to have external stimulation, and in fact, I think it is not healthy if we don’t have at least some bit of quiet time.

My DH has been out of town on business all weekend - the house has been quiet, the tv has not been on one time, and I absolutely love the silence and respite from hustle and bustle.

I go on a silent retreat every year - for almost 40 hours we are silent with God. It truly is amazing, and something I look forward to every year.

~Liza
 
I try to have some quiet time with God first thing in the morining, before I go to bed at night, and I’ve also leaned that I can turn off the radio in the car when I’m alone, nor do I need the television on all of the time. I also go for walks by myself a few times a week, and just try to tune into God, too. Oh yea, weekly adoradtion is great for this, too.
 
“Listen my child, with the ear of your heart.” St. Benedict

How can we listen if we are not silent? I think adoration is a good time to be silent before the Lord. I live alone, so I find it easy to make my house silent. What is hard is making myself silent.

Noise is a new book out by Teresa Tomeo. It helps people to understand how the media effects our daily lives and our ability to be with God is silence.
 
Pascal once said “The sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.”

What he meant is to put oneself in silence and solitude. While being surrounded by pictures, sounds, people, and daily busyness, it is hard to have recourse and recollection with the Lord. As the temple of Holy Spirit, we need to have quiet time with self and with the Lord.

My favorite time of each day is the time sitting or kneeling in front of the tabernacle, usually alone with nobody else around.
 
InLight247 said:
Pascal once said “The sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.”

What he meant is to put oneself in silence and solitude. While being surrounded by pictures, sounds, people, and daily busyness, it is hard to have recourse and recollection with the Lord. As the temple of Holy Spirit, we need to have quiet time with self and with the Lord.

My favorite time of each day is the time sitting or kneeling in front of the tabernacle, usually alone with nobody else around.
Click to expand...
Thanks for sharing… great testimony… I appreciate it…
 
Wow, that sounds good.

40% until now have chosen the first option
 
Well here’s a tip from a highly anxious individual.

If I just go to adoration or whatever and be silent for a half and hour…it makes me nutso crazy.

However, if I just be silent (turn off t.v, CAF, radio, my thoughts, etc.) for a half hour while cleaning the house, making dinner, or taking a walk. I have much better “luck” hearing that still small voice. It’s like I have to be keeping the rest of me busy…mind and body…so that they are occupied enough to let God do His thing. 🙂
 
Convert_in_99 said:
Well here’s a tip from a highly anxious individual.

If I just go to adoration or whatever and be silent for a half and hour…it makes me nutso crazy.

However, if I just be silent (turn off t.v, CAF, radio, my thoughts, etc.) for a half hour while cleaning the house, making dinner, or taking a walk. I have much better “luck” hearing that still small voice. It’s like I have to be keeping the rest of me busy…mind and body…so that they are occupied enough to let God do His thing. 🙂
Click to expand...
Sure thing!

But maybe the adoration time is still something special. Just like I can be all day with my DW doing stuff at home (though I don’t have one (yet) 🙂 ) and no one can say I’m not with her. But when I invite her out for a dinner, that’s a special time I set for us to be together.

I’ve found I have problems staying on adoration for a certain time and not going nutso crazy if I’m not used to finding time for him apart from that adoration. Maybe it’s like lovers. If they are not close together, they at least think about each other.

Just throwing the analogies as they come, sry 🙂

Have you ever thought of this? Jesus told us never to say a lot of words. Yet he often spend even all the night praying (!). The amazing thing is he didn’t go nutso crazy (no accounts of that 🙂 ) What was he doing then? He must have been listening all the time…

I’ve got a lot to learn…
 
I pray the Rosary every day. I think Mary, the Holy Spirit and Jesus are so able to make our Rosary into what we need.

Some of the medicine pills I take may be controlled-release tablets. And I think the Rosary can be like this too. We pray the Rosary. And like taking a pill, the benefit of prayer can be longer lasting.

My time for God in silence is any time I quietly hold the Rosary in my hand. Even without praying and without much thought at all, I think this perhaps is my time for God in silence. To hold the Rosary at night, or in the daytime. I prefer to hold my Rosary if I feel troubled or nervous. It brings me comfort.

Perhaps this is because I am a fairly recent convert. Maybe others have outgrown their childish need to hold the Rosary. But for me, when I merely hold the Rosary in my hand – I think to myself that this is asking Mary to hold my hand. And perhaps she does or maybe some angel does.

If you want comfort from the Rosary, pray the Rosary – often.

jmm08
 
Convert_in_99 said:
However, if I just be silent (turn off t.v, CAF, radio, my thoughts, etc.) for a half hour while cleaning the house, making dinner, or taking a walk. I have much better “luck” hearing that still small voice. It’s like I have to be keeping the rest of me busy…mind and body…so that they are occupied enough to let God do His thing. 🙂
Click to expand...
Here’s a quote that might interest you, from the Statutes of the Carthusians, whose charism is solitude and silence:
A certain amount of manual work should also be done, not merely for an hour’s relaxation, but chiefly because this submission of the body to the common lot of mankind helps to conserve and nourish joy in spiritual things.
Click to expand...
Above quote comes from this website:

xxxxx.dircon.co.uk/Cart/1.htm
 
jmm08 said:
But for me, when I merely hold the Rosary in my hand – I think to myself that this is asking Mary to hold my hand. And perhaps she does or maybe some angel does.

If you want comfort from the Rosary, pray the Rosary – often.
jmm08
Click to expand...
Thank you for your sharing. I have been a Catholic since 1969, I too like to hold Rosary in my hand. I often hold it in my hand when go to sleep. If I get up in the middle of the night, I search for the rosary and re-hold it before falling into sleep again. 😉
 
It’s hard to find the one-on-one time, like with a holy hour. If I can ever master the art of time management, I am sure I could fit it in. Until then, I normally silent in my work. Like if I am working in my garage or doing yardwork, I normally do it alone and so I have a mental/meditative prayer similar to what monks would do when working out in the fields. Their bodies may have been working, but their minds were on God.

I also do this on my commute to work. There are times I will just shut the radio and music off and just drive and talk to God…he’s better than talking to OnStar:thumbsup:

I think this is how you can truly pray without ceasing.
 
I am lately used to going for a walk every day around midnight 🙂 It’s great.
 
InLight247 said:
Thank you for your sharing. I have been a Catholic since 1969, I too like to hold Rosary in my hand. I often hold it in my hand when go to sleep. If I get up in the middle of the night, I search for the rosary and re-hold it before falling into sleep again. 😉
Click to expand...
To sleep with the rosary, I recommend using a thick white cotton sock like a gym sock. Put the rosary in the sock and sleep with your hand inside the sock. This way, you are much less likely to accidentally injure yourself with the rosary – I suppose the metal cross could scratch you or poke your eye. And you will be less disturbed in the middle of the night because you can’t find your rosary. Frankly, I am uncomfortable to be without it. And I sleep better with it because it makes me more comfortable.

I’ve had quite a bit of practice and I usually don’t lose my rosary in the night even without the sock (unless I embrace my wife – then it is easy to lose it). But it is safer and Mary is a concerned mother about our physical safety as well. I think she prefers that I use the sock although I am sometimes too lazy.

What makes me wonder is this – I have a really good wife. She is not a Catholic and yet she hasn’t asked about the socks in bed and I wonder if she knows I’ve got my rosary.

The socks on each hand is also a great idea if you are trying to stop biting your fingernails. I’m currently very close to stopping and I think one of the problems was unconsciously doing it in my sleep. By breaking the habit in my subconscious or unconscious self, it is easier to also do it in the daytime. In the daytime, I put some bitters meant for dog training on my fingers.

A lot is going on with me lately. And the Lord is straightening me out good fashioned. I completed RCIA two years ago.

jmm08
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top