Hear Our Silence

When we launched Hear our Silence an invitation to silent prayer, I asked the Prior of Parkminster to flesh out this moment, making it a universal appeal.

Here is his reply, a Carthusian addresses the world beyond his cell:

Asking people to pray is like telling the wind to blow, the ear to listen, the eye to see. We cannot not pray, anymore than not be, once given the gift of existence.

We can only shut it out or deny it.

Prayer is simply the conscious dimension of being when it opens out to receive all that it is: gift, marvellously, gratuitously there; word of communion with all things, who hears their silence of wonder, adoration before Him who is the source and end of all.

Prayer is also the birthing of the person, the creative revelation each is called to become, the etching of a mysterious face reflected by the Mystery we contemplate, the knowing of God as we come to know ourselves, Spirit breathed by the Thou who calls and loves.

Silence then is the plenitude of the Word.

Prayer ultimately is Love.