What does a book on Silence have to do with helping those of us with various disabilities or mental health issues, or for those of us for whatever reason feel so broken in so many different ways? Why am I giving it such a huge recommendation? A quote that resonates with me again and again is from St. Augustine “You have created us for Yourself O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in God”. Let me give a bit of a personal testimony to explore this further.


Shortly before my recent trip to Ottawa where I truly discovered this new book, my Bishop Marcel encouraged me in my own restlessness to wrestle with God for this rest, to know what He is saying to me by making more time and space to listen to Him. Overall in my life I have found myself in so many ways even as a follower of Christ very, very restless. With my fast moving mind having a Non- Verbal Learning Disability and ADHD and so many things on the go its often been hard to hear God in the silence of my heart. It has therefore at times been very hard to know in my wounds the depths of His love and peace, something I am meant to experience for eternity and am called to start now. I think this is why God has lead me to this book as Cardinal Sarah shows that when I retreat from my interior and exterior noise, which this book has been helping me to do with God, I can better know God’s love beyond my brokenness.

In terms of my ministry also with St. Therese’s Vision for Disability Giftedness I am learning that I can only be effective when like Mary who chose the better part in the Gospel I must also sit and be at rest at the feet of Jesus. As Jesus begins to heal my wounds than I can even though still a broken man, yet one who has truly encountered the Father’s love, even I can be an instrument of the Holy Spirit for the healing of others. For as St. Therese of Lisieux herself discovered in the silence of the brokenness of her own heart is what our loving Father is so attracted to, He comes to meet with His love His broken children snuggling them close to His Heart. I encourage you to allow a humble leader of our Church, Cardinal Sarah, with his Wisdom on the scriptures and many men and women of the Church, to help you discover that place in your heart in silence that Christ so strongly wants to touch. For in a world that is dominated by a “dictatorship of noise” only in the “the power of silence” can we be at peace and rest.

 

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