How to Grow in Interior Silence

More than the absence of noise

Silence is often confused with simply not speaking. But one can quiet the mouth and still have a soul full of clamor; one can sit in a deserted chapel and remain as scattered as in a train station. Exterior silence, the absence of sounds, is only the threshold; interior silence is the dwelling. Madeleine Delbrêl, who lived and prayed in the heart of a noisy working-class suburb, expressed it in a formula often quoted, here summarized as a paraphrase: we would not lack silence, for we already possess it; the day we lack it is the day we have not known how to take it. All the noises that surround us would, in her view, make much less racket than we ourselves do: the real noise would be the echo that things have within us^[6].

This real noise, then, is not in the street: it is in the heart. Growing in interior silence is not first about quieting the world, but about quieting this inner echo, that inner sounding board where the words we have heard, the images we have seen, the worries we have brooded over, endlessly resound.

The silence of the heart, condition for encounter

Interior silence is relational: it only makes sense when directed toward Someone. It is the attitude of one who is silent in order to listen. The Catechism places listening and silence at the very heart of prayer:

“Contemplative prayer is hearing the Word of God. Far from being passive, this hearing is the obedience of faith, the unconditional acceptance of a servant, and the loving commitment of a child.” Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 2716^[7]

“Contemplative prayer is silence, this ‘symbol of the world to come’ or ‘silent love.’ The words in contemplative prayer are not speeches but tender that kindles the fire of love.” Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 2717^[8]

Silence, then, is not emptiness: it is “silent love”, in the beautiful expression of Saint John of the Cross taken up by the Catechism. It is full, as is the gaze of two people who love each other and no longer need words. This is why it is inseparable from attentive listening to the Word of God, which the Catechism describes as the obedience of faith, the unconditional acceptance of the servant and the loving adherence of the child (cf. § 2716). Thomas à Kempis laid this down as a principle at the very threshold of the interior life:

“He who aspires to the interior and spiritual life must withdraw from the crowd with Jesus. No one shows himself without danger if he does not love to remain hidden. No one speaks with moderation if he does not willingly keep silence.” Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, I, 20^[9]

Exterior silence, interior silence: do not confuse the means and the end

The two kinds of silence are linked, but distinct, and it is important not to mistake one for the other. One is exterior, material, partial; the other is interior, spiritual, and alone decisive. The following table distinguishes their characteristics.

Reading the table: exterior silence is precious and should be sought, but it is always only a springboard. The goal is interior silence, which does not depend on circumstances: a recollected heart remains united to God in the subway as in the monastery.

What Interior Silence Is Not

Three misunderstandings threaten anyone who wishes to grow in interior silence, and they must be set aside from the start.

It is not emptiness. Christian silence is not the extinction of thought sought for its own sake, as in certain relaxation techniques or Eastern meditations. It is not about “emptying oneself,” but about “making room”: we clear away the tumult not to arrive at nothingness, but to welcome a Presence. The biblical desert is never empty: it is the place where “I will lead her into the wilderness and speak to her heart” (Hos 2:16)^[10].

It is not escape. To be silent out of sulking, or to withdraw in order to flee one’s duties or one’s brothers, is not interior silence but escapism. True silence makes us more present, more attentive, more charitable, and not more absent. Mother Teresa, whose sisters lived in contact with the poorest of the poor, made it the very source of action: according to her, what one receives in silent prayer nourishes what one can then give in active life^[11].

It is not quietism. Interior silence is not a lazy passivity where one waits for God to do everything without any effort on our part. On the contrary, it requires a patient and active struggle against dissipation. For the vigilance and watchfulness it demands, see How to grow in spiritual vigilance.

“It Is There That God Speaks”

The first reason is the simplest: God communicates Himself in silence. Not that He is mute, since He is the Word itself, but His Word is so delicate that it can only be heard in a heart that is at peace. Saint John of the Cross summed up the whole mystery in one of his most cited maxims, rendered here in paraphrase: the Father has spoken only one Word, his Son; he speaks it always in eternal silence, and it is in silence that it must be heard by the soul^[12].

If the Eternal Word is spoken in eternal silence, then it is by becoming silent that the soul becomes capable of hearing it. The same teaching runs through the writings of the mystics. Jesus, in the Divine Appeals to Marie Sevray, says it with insistent tenderness:

“Let souls come away from exterior tumult, let them withdraw apart, let them contemplate Me and listen to Me… I will work them like soft wax. In dissipation, I will not do so.” The Lord to Marie Sevray, Divine Appeals^[13]

Sister Benigna-Consolata Ferrero heard the same invitation to descend to the deepest point within oneself:

“The soul must find within itself that highest summit… the place where silence reigns, for it is there that God speaks and communicates Himself.” Jesus to Sister Benigna-Consolata Ferrero^[14]

Elijah at Horeb: God in the Whisper

Scripture has fixed this spiritual law in an unforgettable scene. The prophet Elijah, fleeing and on the verge of despair, stands at the entrance of the cave at Horeb. The hurricane passes, the earthquake, the fire, “but the Lord was not” in these commotions. And after the fire comes “the whisper of a gentle breeze”, literally “a voice of thin silence”, and it is there that God is present^[15].

“After the fire, the whisper of a gentle breeze. When Elijah heard it, he covered his face with his mantle.” First Book of Kings 19:12-13^[16]

The lesson is clear: God does not allow Himself to be grasped in noise and agitation, but in the delicate silence where the soul must strain to listen. This is why the Psalm invites us to stillness as a condition of faith: “Be still! Know that I am God” (Ps 45:11)^[17], and elsewhere: “In God alone is my soul at rest” (Ps 62:2)^[18].

The Silence of Nazareth: Mary and Joseph

The longest teaching of Christ on silence is not a discourse: it is the thirty hidden years of Nazareth. While the Word was silent, two people learned to live in that silence. Mary “kept all these things, pondering them in her heart” (Lk 2:19; 2:51)^[19]: her silence is not the absence of thought, but a loving meditation on the Word. Joseph, for his part, has not a single word recorded in the entire Gospel: he is the silent just man par excellence, the one who acts without speaking, who “does” what the angel tells him without ever commenting^[20]. The Catechism presents the hidden life of Nazareth as the school where one begins to understand the life of Jesus, and it takes up there the lesson of silence of Paul VI (cf. § 533)^[21]. Paul VI, at Nazareth on 5 January 1964, expressed it thus: “O silence of Nazareth, teach us recollection, interiority, readiness to listen to the good inspirations and to the words of true teachers; teach us the need and the value of preparation, study, meditation, personal and interior life, and of prayer, which God alone sees in secret”^[22].

The Silence of the Martyrs and of the Cross

Interior silence is not only the condition for peaceful prayer: it is also the strength of those who suffer. The summit of Christian silence is that of Christ before Pilate, who “answered nothing” (Mt 27:14). Cardinal Sarah sees in this the source of all fruitfulness of Christian silence:

“The martyrs of the early centuries, like those of our own sorrowful times, have all shown the same silent dignity. Silence then becomes the only word, the sole testimony, the final testament. The blood of the martyrs is a seed, a cry, and a silent prayer rising to God.” Cardinal Robert Sarah, The Power of Silence, no. 198^[23]

Dissipation and the “Dictatorship of Noise”

The first enemy is dissipation: that scattering of the soul which pours itself outwards through all its senses and never returns to itself. Saint Basil gives a striking image: an eye that constantly looks to the right and to the left “cannot see clearly what is before it; in the same way, the mind of man, if distracted by the many cares of the world, is incapable of fixing itself on the truth”^[24]. On the contrary:

“The mind that no longer disperses itself outwardly, that no longer pours itself into the world through the senses, returns to itself, and, starting from itself, rises to the thought of God.” Saint Basil of Caesarea, Small Ascetical Collection^[25]

Our era has brought dissipation to an unprecedented level. Cardinal Sarah describes, in substance, a contemporary man who has become incapable of bearing silence: he no longer understands divine eternity, he becomes agitated as soon as the noise stops, and he has grown accustomed to a constant background noise that stupefies him while reassuring him^[26].

The Noise Within

But the most stubborn enemy is not the noise outside: it is the noise within. One can turn off the phone and still have the mind assailed by thoughts, scenarios, imaginary conversations, and brooding resentments. John Tauler describes this struggle to bring the soul back to its depths:

“Do not run much outside; leave aside your turmoil, your agitation, your impulsive and disorderly ways of acting… remain within yourself and give your attention to the Lord, in the depths where He reigns with power.” John Tauler, Sermon 67^[27]

This “noise within” has a root: the agitation of passions and desires. Ambrose of Lombez saw in this the source of wandering thoughts: “The shortest way to drive away useless and fickle thoughts… is to put an end to all movements of the passions. Let us regulate the heart, and all will be regulated within us.”^[28]

Curiosity, Chatter, and the Fever of Activity

Three habits feed this interior noise and make it chronic.

Curiosity: that need to see everything, know everything, consume everything with the eyes and ears. In a message of the Blue Book addressed first to the priests of the Marian Movement of Priests, the Virgin would invite, in substance, to guard themselves from newspapers and television in order to remain in prayer on her Heart^[29]. Guarding the senses, as we shall see, is one of the first means to silence.

Chatter: unrestrained speech, which empties the soul as it speaks. Abbé Dinouart made an entire wisdom of it: “One should only cease to be silent when one has something to say that is better than silence.”^[30] And he sets a hierarchy: “The first degree of wisdom is to know how to be silent; the second, to know how to speak little…”^[31]

The fever of activity: that restless zeal which, under the guise of generosity, kills the interior life. The Lord denounced it to Marie Sevray with astonishing vigor:

“You must run, you must have no time!… This fever, even when produced by zeal, kills the interior life in souls.” The Lord to Marie Sevray, Divine Calls^[32]

Interior silence is not acquired all at once: it is gained step by step, by successively quieting the faculties that make noise. Several nested “silences” may be distinguished here, as a pedagogical schema, from the most exterior to the deepest. Presenting them helps us know where we stand and what battle to fight.

The Silence of the Lips

The most accessible: holding one's tongue, speaking less and better, avoiding chatter, slander, and argument. This is the beginning, not the end. “No one speaks with moderation unless he is willing to be silent,” said Thomas à Kempis^[33]. But one can be silent with the lips and remain noisy within: this first silence calls for the next.

The Silence of the Senses and the Eyes

Deeper: custody of the senses, especially sight and hearing. What the eye sees and the ear hears leaves images and echoes within us that later feed the interior tumult. Moderating screens, images, and absorbed noises is to dry up the source of the “noise within.”

The Silence of the Imagination and Memory

Still more interior: calming the imagination that fabricates scenarios, and the memory that broods. Here the real battle begins, for these faculties “speak” even when all is calm around us. Jesus asked this of Gabrielle Bossis with a very simple image: “Rid yourself of every thought, of every care of the day. Cast them off as you would a garment. And be all Mine.”^[34]

The Silence of the Heart and the Will

The deepest: the silence of the passions, desires, and self-will, so that the soul wants nothing but what God wants. This is perfect silence, where God alone reigns. Sister Marie of the Trinity heard it expressed thus: “Gentleness, silence, humility, kindness, patience—I will make you bear all these fruits, provided you remain in Me.”^[35]

How to read the table: begin at the top, the most accessible, without ever stopping there. Each degree prepares for the next; the silence of the heart, the summit, is also a gift that God grants to the faithful soul.

Setting Aside Times and Places for Silence

One does not become silent by accident: one must choose silence, set aside times and places for it. Father Marie-Étienne Vayssière made it almost a physical rule:

“Solitude, silence, recollection—establish yourself in this atmosphere, guard it jealously. It is there that God speaks and visits us. […] Let yourself be led, let yourself be loved, that is what matters.” Father Marie-Étienne Vayssière, Consentir à l'Amour^[36]

Concretely: a fixed time of silent prayer each day; moments away from screens; a prayer corner at home; the habit of seeking, in a busy day, small “deserts”, a commute, a wait, a pause. Silence must be taken; it does not fall from the sky.

Custody of the Senses

The custody of the senses, the custodia sensuum of monastic tradition, means filtering what enters through sight and hearing, because everything leaves a trace that will resurface in prayer. It is not about despising the world, but about not letting oneself be invaded. Reducing the flow of images and information, choosing what we watch and listen to, is already preparing the silence of the heart. This call, addressed first to priests, enlightens every baptized person: let nothing enter that draws you away from the Heart of God^[37].

The Patient Battle Against Thoughts

The longest work is that against wandering thoughts. The rule of the spiritual masters is constant: do not get upset, do not fight head-on, but return gently and continually. When the imagination strays, do not tense up, simply return to God, as many times as needed. Ambrose of Lombez gives the secret: it is by peace, not by tension, that thoughts are calmed:

“If you wish to converse with God, you must put yourself at peace, for He speaks only the language of peace, which can be heard only by those who enjoy peace in their own hearts.” Ambrose of Lombez, Traité de la paix intérieure^[38]

For the specifically ascetical part of this battle, the guarding of the heart, the sorting of thoughts, see How to grow in spiritual vigilance.

Making Silence Out of Love, Not Tense Effort

A common mistake: turning silence into a performance, tensing up to “succeed” at not thinking. But interior silence is not a feat of concentration; it is an act of love. We are silent for Someone. Elizabeth of the Trinity, a master of interior silence, did not see it as an achievement but as an inhabited dwelling:

“Remain in me, not just for a few moments, a few hours that must pass, but ‘remain…’ in a permanent, habitual way. Remain in me, pray in me, adore in me, love in me.” Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity, Œuvres complètes^[39]

It is this love that changes everything: silence ceases to be a void to fill and becomes a presence to savor. Blessed Dina Bélanger, as presented by Jacques Gauthier in Je donnerai de la joie, evoked silence as a fountain of gladness, the most perfect praise within Uncreated Light^[40].

Dwelling in Your “Interior Cell”

Saint Catherine of Siena, who had to leave solitude very early for a life of intense action, received a decisive light: there exists an “interior cell” that one carries everywhere, the cell of self-knowledge and knowledge of God, from which one never needs to depart^[41]. Interior silence is precisely the habit of dwelling in this cell, of returning to it amid work, encounters, and noise. Elizabeth of the Trinity said the same: “The Trinity, that is our dwelling, our ‘home,’ the Father’s house from which we must never depart.”^[42]

Eucharistic Silence

There is no better school of silence than adoration. Before the tabernacle, silence becomes face to face. The Lord said this to Marie Sevray using the image of an artist: “It is not by running that the artist works and creates his masterpieces… I, the divine Artist, do the same. Inaction before the Tabernacle, soul and heart in Me, is for Me the opportune moment to work, to form My Saints.”^[43] For the specific practice of adoration, see How to grow in Eucharistic adoration.

Fidelity Over Time

Finally, interior silence is not conquered in a day: it is the work of silence and peace, a slow and hidden labor. One must accept the dryness of the beginnings, the feeling of “doing nothing”, the impression that nothing is happening. It is precisely there that God works in secret. As the Lord said through Father Gaston Courtois: “There must be silence, there must be desert. One dreads dryness and emptiness. But if you are faithful, if you persevere… your Beloved will make His voice heard.”^[44] For this virtue of perseverance, see How to grow in perseverance.

Hearing the Voice of God

The first fruit is the one we seek: at last, God can speak and be heard. “When you take the time to stop before Me, you surrender yourself and I can speak to you,” Jesus said to Gabrielle Bossis^[45]. Silence makes the soul porous to the Word, attentive to the movements of the Spirit, able to discern Elijah’s “still, small voice” amid the clamor of daily life.

Peace and the Unification of the Heart

Silence gathers the scattered soul and restores its unity. The man of noise is dispersed; “he slips,” the Lord said to Marie Sevray, never going deeper into anything^[46]. The silent man, on the other hand, finds his center, and with it, peace, not merely peace of nerves, but the peace that “the world cannot give” (Jn 14:27). Interior silence is inseparable from this peace: it is both its condition and its fruit. This peace naturally extends the attitude of abandonment: see How to grow in abandonment to God.

Apostolic Fruitfulness

Far from making one sterile, silence makes one fruitful. All the great works of charity have been born from silent souls: it is from the “overflow” of their interior life that the saints have poured out upon the world^[47]. Mother Teresa considered it a law: we can only give what we have received, and we receive only in silence^[48]. Silence is not the opposite of action; it is its hidden root.

A Foretaste of Heaven and the Divine Will

Interior silence is, finally, an anticipation of Heaven, which Blessed Dina Bélanger described, according to Jacques Gauthier, as the pure melody of happiness^[49]. For the Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta (1865-1947; Nulla Osta of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, June 2024, confirmed 3 December 2024), the soul that lives IN the Divine Will, not only doing what God wants but letting Him live in her as in Adam before the fall, enters into a rest where God Himself dwells within her: “I am here with you. Do not look elsewhere to find Me. I rest in you and I watch over you.”^[50]

This is the culmination of the journey: not merely keeping silence to hear God from time to time, but becoming a dwelling where God “rests,” a “heaven” inhabited by the Trinity. Elizabeth of the Trinity received this full light:

“It seems to me that I have found my Heaven on earth, since Heaven is God, and God is my soul.” Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity, Letter 122^[51]

The Desert Fathers

The first great masters of silence were the monks who populated the deserts of Egypt in the fourth century. To Abba Arsenius, who asked God how to be saved, a voice replied with three words that became the program for every contemplative life:

“Arsenius, flee, be silent, rest. These are the roots of a life without sin.” Sayings of the Desert Fathers, Arsenius^[52]

Fleeing dissipation, keeping silence, remaining at rest: these three roots sum up the entire struggle for interior silence.

Carmel: John of the Cross and Elizabeth of the Trinity

Carmel has made interior silence the heart of its spirituality. Saint John of the Cross teaches that God communicates Himself to the soul in silence, and that the soul must therefore silence its appetites and thoughts^[53]. Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity, who died at twenty-six, drew from this a mysticism of Presence: “Making silence” within oneself so that the Trinity may dwell there. Her entire doctrine is summed up in this call to become, through interior silence, a “praise of glory”, a soul “who dwells in God… in great interior silence”^[54].

The Carthusians

No order has taken silence as far as the Carthusians, who have lived for nine centuries in almost unbroken solitude. Their motto, “Stat crux dum volvitur orbis”, “The Cross stands firm while the world turns”, expresses this silent stability amid the agitation of the world. Dom Augustin Guillerand, one of their great spiritual masters, wrote pages of rare depth on silence: Carthusian silence is not muteness, but fullness, a loving listening to a Presence^[55]. Their witness reminds us that interior silence, professed by monks, is in reality offered to every baptized person.

Mary, Virgin of Silence

Above all, Mary is the mistress of interior silence. She “kept all these things, pondering them in her heart” (Lk 2:19). Her silence is not emptiness: it is fullness of listening and love, perfect receptivity to the Word. To take Mary as our model is to learn to make our heart, like hers, the silent sanctuary where the Word can be spoken and grow. To grow in interior silence, ultimately, is to become under her gaze a recollected soul where God “speaks and communicates Himself”, and who, by listening to Him ever more deeply, comes at last to have “but one heart and one soul” with Him.

Interior silence does not grow through grand acts of renunciation, but through small, repeated acts of fidelity: a few minutes gained here, a word held back there, averted eyes, a patient return to God each time the mind wanders. None of these gestures is spectacular on its own; it is their steady repetition, day after day, that gradually shapes a silent soul, just as a drop of water, by falling on the same spot, eventually wears away stone.

Here is a summary of the exercises described above, arranged from the most accessible, the custody of the tongue, to the deepest, the silence of the heart and will offered to God.

How to read the table: none of these exercises is spectacular; it is their peaceful repetition that transforms. Begin with one or two, persevere in them, then gradually move toward deeper silences.

The essential thing is not to aim for silence “in general”, but to make, today, the concrete act that presents itself: that unnecessary word to hold back, that glance to turn away, that thought to let fall “like a garment”, that quarter hour to offer in silence. For interior silence, according to Saint John of the Cross, is the place where the Eternal Word must be heard by the soul^[56], and it is by keeping silence, day after day, that we finally learn to hear Him.

• Why Does God Seem Silent?, the complementary and distinct question: not the silence we make for God, but the apparent silence of God Himself in times of trial.
• How to Grow in Mental Prayer, the practice of interior prayer, of which silence is the soul.
• How to Grow in Lectio Divina, the prayerful reading of Scripture, where silence allows the Word to descend into the heart.
• How to Grow in Eucharistic Adoration, the great school of silence, the face-to-face encounter before the Blessed Sacrament.
• How to Grow in Spiritual Vigilance, the custody of the heart and the battle against thoughts, the ascetical side of interior silence.
• How to Grow in Abandonment to God and How to Grow in Trust, the filial rest that is the ripe fruit of the silence of the heart.