In a charterhouse [Carthusian monastery], we seek, not silence, but, rather, intimacy with God by means of silence. It is the privileged space that will allow for communion; it is on the order of language, but a different language.
Thus the Statutes of the Order begin with this foundational sentence: “To the praise of the glory of God, Christ, the Father’s Word, has through the Holy Spirit, from the beginning chosen certain men, whom he willed to lead into solitude and unite to himself in intimate love. In obedience to such a call, Master Bruno and six companions entered the desert of Chartreuse in the year of our Lord 1084 and settled there” (Statutes I.1).
We must ceaselessly return to the mystery of Jesus himself. Two thousand years ago, God spoke in the world with human speech just like ours. Christ lived for thirty-three years on our earth, and during thirty years his speech did not go beyond the setting of a village with a few hundred inhabitants. This is God’s silence. He is on earth, and he remains hidden. Can we speak about a silent God? I would rather speak about a hidden God. These are two nuances of one and the same reality, which convey the same contrast: God is silent, and this is his way of speaking. He is silent when he speaks. When the Word is made flesh, he shows himself to our eyes, but by that very fact he veils his divinity. When that divinity speaks with our man-made words, the divine Word is audible to our ears and hidden; most people hear only human words and do not pay attention. The paradox is impressive: God stoops to speak our language, and that makes us deaf to the divine inflections of this all-too-earthly voice.
During his life, Jesus spoke with words, and once he even spoke with cords. But in the presence of the Sanhedrin, Herod, and Pilate, he is quiet. He would explain to the high priest: “I have spoken openly to the world; I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all Jews come together; I have said nothing secretly. Why do you ask me? Ask those who have heard me, what I said to them; they know what I said” (Jn 18:20-21). This response would earn him a slap; is this not precisely the current situation? Jesus spoke the word that the Father wanted to address to the world. He carried out his mission to the end. If we want to know what he is saying to us, we must ask those who are his witnesses or those whom he has accredited, in other words, his Church. But this answer is not popular. . . God’s silence is not so much a matter of him not speaking as it is the manner in which he expresses himself and our reluctance to listen to him.
The spiritual life goes through alternating phases in which God successively shows and hides himself, makes himself heard and is quiet. Prayer teaches us the subtleties of divine speech. Is God being silent, or are we not hearing him because our interior ear and our intellect are not accustomed to his language? The fruit of silence is learning to discern his voice, even though it always keeps its mystery.
In prayer, the divine voice is powerful in that it is capable of touching us in our inmost depths, but it manifests itself in an extremely discreet way. The paths of the spiritual life are quite varied, and some may pass through a desert that seems endless. There are persons for whom God’s silence in their life is almost palpable. This may take mystical forms, as shown by the very painful experience of Mother Teresa of Calcutta; after years of profound intimacy with the Lord, the saint saw everything gradually fade. During the last two years of her life, Thérèse of the Child Jesus also experienced this sort of abandonment. However, that is not the general rule, and the contemplative soul that has learned the language of the divine Bridegroom, although it never hears it as one hears human speech, still learns gradually to notice its traces everywhere. This soul then resembles a loving woman who knows that she is deeply loved, waiting to meet in the evening the man whom she loves. Now throughout the day she sees everywhere signs of his presence without ever encountering him. Here is a love note that is unsigned, but she knows the handwriting too well to have any doubt that it comes from him. There is a bouquet of flowers, with no explanation, yet from certain details she recognizes that he is the one who put it there for her. Later, while walking in the country, she hears the music of a flute; she does not know exactly where it comes from, but she knows that it is he and that he is playing for her, while the person with whom she is walking suspects nothing. And so it is the whole day. She senses him everywhere; she sees everywhere signs not only of his presence but of his attention to her, and for her he speaks unceasingly even though she does not see him anywhere. He secretly prepares her for the evening meeting when they will finally be able to speak. He is there like a perfume, elusive and yet quite perceptible, present everywhere although one cannot tell where it comes from.
I think that God speaks in silence. I am always struck by his discretion, by his very tactful manners with their boundless respect for our freedom. We are as fragile as glass, and so God tempers his power and his speech so as to adapt them to our weakness.
Love does not impose itself; it cannot impose itself. And because God is infinite love, his respect and his tact disconcert us. Precisely because he is present everywhere, he hides himself all the more carefully so as not to impose himself. There is a commandment of God that asks us to love him, but this is only an initial level; a Carthusian brother explained it delightfully in a note: “My God, it is extraordinary that you should ask us to love you. Given what you are and what we are, you ought to forbid us to do so. But if you forbade us to love you, I would love you secretly.”
ROBERT SARAH: Man does not seek silence for the sake of silence. The desire for silence for its own sake would be a sterile venture, a particularly exhausting aesthetic experience. In the depths of his soul, man wants the presence and company of God, in the same way that Christ sought his Father in the desert, far from the cries and passions of the crowd. If we really desire him and if we are in his Presence, words are no longer necessary. This silent intimacy with God is the only speech, dialogue, and communion.
At the Grande Chartreuse, I have the sense that silence is a ladder that is set up on the earth and whose top reaches heaven. If Jacob had been able to spend the night here, I am certain he would have exclaimed: “How awesome is this place! This is none other than a house of God and the gate of heaven” (cf. Gen 28:17).
NICOLAS DIAT: Is the reason why Carthusians subject themselves to such a silent asceticism because silence is the privileged means of finding God?
DYSMAS DE LASSUS: Silence for us is a form of asceticism and a desire. Asceticism because you have to understand that silence demands an effort, but, more than that, it attracts us and we need it. Simple things are always difficult to explain. A person who is trying to hear a bird-song will be quite irritated if an airplane flies over; his space for perception is then reduced, and he can no longer hear the bird. Make no mistake: silence is not sought for its own sake but, rather, for the space it makes. Silence allows us to perceive better and to hear better; it opens our inner space.
NICOLAS DIAT: It is not sought for its own sake, but it is present at every moment. . .
DYSMAS DE LASSUS: That is our dearest wish, but do we attain this ideal? Let us be realistic, noise dwells in Carthusians, too; we know that all too well. Paradoxically, exterior silence and solitude, which have the objective of promoting interior silence, begin by revealing all the noise that dwells within us.
If you have in your pocket a radio that is turned on, you might not realize it in the hubbub of a city or of a street because the noise that it makes blends in with the environment. But if you enter a church, you suddenly understand that incessant chatter is coming from your pocket; the first thing you will do is try to turn it off. Alas, there is no switch to reduce the chattering of our imagination. . . The first step consists of becoming aware of this, even though it is not very pleasant.
The silence that reigns in the monastery is not enough. Attaining communion in silence requires long work that is started over and over again indefinitely. We must be patient, and the efforts to be made are difficult; when our imagination finally agrees to cooperate and to quiet down, the moments of
profound intimacy with God amply repay the efforts that were necessary to make room for him.
But we can never create intimacy with God; it always comes from above, and our responsibility is to build the setting in which the encounter can take place.
Well, solitude helps us. Interior silence is much easier to attain when we are alone. Before the night Office in church, I have always loved the time of solitary prayer in the cell. We have just got up, in the middle of the night, and this time is something unique. We must not idealize it; I am not saying that peace of heart is always present then, but generally the silent communion blossoms much more naturally. I would like to make this recollection last during the recitation of the Office in choir that follows immediately, but I can rarely regain the same quality of communion because the communal dimension of the liturgy sets thoughts in motion.
As long as there are lovers on earth, they will seek to see each other alone, and silence will have a part in their encounter. This is perhaps the simplest way to explain our choice of life. Silence and solitude in a charterhouse have their meaning in this great desire for intimacy with God. For the sons of Saint Bruno, silence and solitude are the perfect place for a heart-to-heart conversation.
ROBERT SARAH: I am completely in agreement with Dom Dysmas. Solitude is indispensable in creating a space of silence. There is no need for particular speech in order to be with God. We have only to be quiet and to contemplate his love. In the silence, we look at God and let him look at us.
God sees us at every moment, but when we surrender to him, his look is more penetrating; we perceive the kindness of his eyes and his Presence illumines us, calms us, and divinizes us.
The Gospels urge people to seek, not silence, but the desert so as to find communion with God. In the New Testament there is no instance where Christ seeks silence. In the desert, he wishes to bring together better conditions for his intimacy with the Father so as to allow himself to be penetrated by his will.
DYSMAS DE LASSUS: In speaking about prayer, Saint John of the Cross says that it resembles “a person who opens his eyes with loving attention” (Living Flame 3, 33). Automatically, this look is silent and amazed. The peasant from Ars, a parishioner of Saint John Vianney, said so poetically: “I look at him and he looks at me.” An exchange of looks—what could be more eloquent when this comes from the heart and goes to the heart?
ROBERT SARAH: The peasant expresses himself very little. He fathoms with his frank, pure look this silent Presence of Jesus, who burns with love for us. God is silent. But his look crosses ours and fills the human heart with its strength and its merciful tenderness.
DYSMAS DE LASSUS: Yes, we do not hear God with our ears because he speaks in another way. In his book Paths to Contemplation, the Jesuit Yves Raguin says: “That which comes from God may appear to us as coming from the depths of the unconscious, but in a light that has come from farther away, we know that it comes from him.” It is useless to try to separate the human element from the divine; one is within the other. Retreatants who aspire to enter the Grande Chartreuse have often asked me how they could be sure that God was calling them to the desert. I always told them I had no idea. . . God manifests himself in many ways, and I cannot guess, nor can they, which way he will take for them. But heaven always ends up manifesting itself.
With time, we end up knowing God’s language, a language that is different for each person. I know well the language that he uses for me, with its unique way of blending human and divine elements, and I can testify that it is marvelously well adapted. More than just words, it is a love that awakens, and I know that it comes from elsewhere because its source is not in me.
Divine intimacy. . . It is not always granted to us, and the desert can be arid. When it is manifested, its melody resounds much more deeply than the well-being of simple silence with God.
In one passage of the Confessions, Saint Augustine uses the language of interior senses to express the fact that this intimacy with God is both familiar, close, and very concrete and, at the same time, imperceptible to our ordinary senses:
It is with no doubtful knowledge, Lord, but with utter certainty that I love You. . . . But what is it that I love when I love You? Not the beauty of any bodily thing, nor the order of seasons, not the brightness of light that rejoices the eye, nor the sweet melodies of all songs, nor the sweet fragrance of flowers and ointments and spices; not manna nor honey, not the limbs that carnal love embraces. None of these things do I love in loving my God. Yet in a sense I do love light and melody and fragrance and food and embrace when I love my God—the light and the voice and the fragrance and the food and embrace in the soul, when that light shines upon my soul which no place can contain, that voice sounds which no time can take from me, I breathe that fragrance which no wind scatters, I eat the food which is not lessened by eating, and I lie in the embrace which satiety never comes to sunder. This it is that I love, when I love my God. (X, 6, 8)
NICOLAS DIAT: Your Eminence, you often speak about silence as God in us. Dom Dysmas, do you agree with this concept?
DYSMAS DE LASSUS: Yes, certainly, since we are speaking about a silence of communion. I would put these two complementary dimensions together: God in us, and we in God, since Jesus uses this expression: “You [are] in me, and I in you” (Jn 14:20); “You, Father, are in me, and I in you” (Jn 17:21). These are two facets of one and the same reality. We may be more sensitive to one or the other, but I do not think it is possible to separate them entirely.
By baptism, the Trinity itself comes to make its dwelling in us. According to Saint Paul, we are temples of the Holy Spirit. This same baptism makes us children of God. If only we could really understand these few words! An unfathomable mystery is born in the extreme simplicity of the sacrament: water and the word are there to signify an unimaginable reality. I am thinking of the remark of a Byzantine poet who alluded to the theophany on Mount Sinai: “Thunder, lightning, the earth quakes. But when you descended into the womb of a virgin, your step made no noise.”
If God’s entrance among us occurred in silence, it is quite normal that communion with him should be marked by the same seal. Our Statutes (13.15) quote Basil of Ancyra (De Virginitate, PG 30, 765): “In solitude, then, let the monk’s soul be like a tranquil lake, whose waters well up from the purest sources of the spirit and, untroubled by news coming from outside, like a clear mirror reflect one image only, that of Christ.”
God in us! However much these words may lead us to dream, it is a reality. Jesus says: “If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him” (Jn 14:23).
This truth of the faith opens us hic et nunc [here and now] to the most profound intimacy with God. It is the lighthouse of our life. I am deeply convinced that if Christians were more conscious of this reality, their lives would be transformed, and the world, too.
It seems to me important to maintain an equilibrium between the closeness and the transcendence of God. In the Confessions, Saint Augustine famously formulated the problem: “Intimior intimo meo et superior summo meo.” [“More inward than the most inward place of my heart and loftier than the highest.”] To hold one without the other can lead to spiritual disorders. On the one hand, a sort of excessive familiarity with a God who is too much on our own scale, who is no longer really God, and, on the other hand, an uneasy, almost Jansenist distance.
The mystery is none other than the divine “filiation” or sonship that is offered to us. If only we could understand! If only we could experience it more! Nothing could trouble us then. The difficulties of life would not be changed, but they could no longer affect the heart of our life. Saint Paul tells us: “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will he not also give us all things with him?” (Rom 8:32). If I know that I have received everything, I can lack nothing. We speak about silence: the profound peace of the soul that knows that it is loved beyond its wildest dreams, the unchangeable calm that dwells wit
hin it—is that not interior silence? A living, expressive, inhabited silence. Trembling expectation in the hope of the day of the great face-to-face encounter.
It is fundamentally important to remain in the intimacy of God and of his extraordinary simplicity, I would even say “familiarity” toward us, yet also to understand the meaning of transcendence, the immensity that surpasses us and calls us in one and the same movement. Only this balance can lend to our relation with God its full depth, because the ineffable miracle of divine intimacy comes precisely from his transcendence. How can what is infinite not only come to meet us but also form an intimate relation with what is finite, its creature?
ROBERT SARAH: God is great. God is beyond contingencies, God is immense. It is true that I would never automatically use the word “familiarity” in speaking about God. When you are familiar with someone, you take almost every sort of liberty, and you are less careful about your gestures and words. It is not possible to allow oneself to behave that way with God, even though he is our Father. God is silence, God is love. We approach love as something sacred, with dignity, respect, and adoration. To me it seems strange to try to create tangible relations with the divine that are devoid of reverence.
The silence that brings us close to God is always a respectful silence, a silence of adoration, a silence of filial love. It is never a trivial silence.
God in us, and we in God; only love can carry out that plan infallibly. Jesus, on several occasions, confirms that God is a burning presence in the depths of our soul, a real presence, the presence apart from which we cannot encounter anyone: “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him” (Jn 6:56).
Saint Paul offers us his own interior experience, which seems to convey this grace given to mankind: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God” (Gal 2:20-21).
The Power of Silence Page 23