/christian/ - Christian Discussion and Fellowship

Reading suggestion:

The Power of Silence - Against the Dictatorship of Noise; Robert Cardinal Sarah

>>576489

>thread about silence

>babbles on for 5 paragraphs

Something's not right. You don't talk about silence, you just do it. As soon as you say anything, silence is broken.

>>576602

It would be great if you'd elaborate about it.

>>576618

Not him, but there was a thread a while back about heiosis or something of that nature that I expanded upon the topic of Hesychastic Prayer.

This was the thread if you're interested

>>563519

>Matthew 27:51-54

>And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom; and the earth shook, and the rocks were split; the tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many. When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe, and said, “Truly this was the Son[f] of God!”

God of silence(AND EARTHQUAKES)

>Matthew 27:23-26

>Then the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the Lord out of the heavens. Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, destroying all those living in the cities—and also the vegetation in the land. But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.

God of silence(AND METEORS)

>>576628

God reveals Himself to people in silence tho. Mose was out in the wilderness, sheparding a flock, when he saw the burning thornbush (Exodus 3:1-15 and further) - and Moses was not only given tasks, God revealed his name. This did not happen in a bang - it was in silence, in the night, out in the wilderness.

Another example is the Announciation of Mary and her Conception through the Holy Spirit. (Luke 1:26:38). Or that Joseph received a personal revelation in his sleep that he may be a father to Christ the Lord, because he was not a "bastard child" that sprung from fornication but a miraculous coneption. (Matthew 1:20-21)

Last but not least - God reveals himself to us in our heart. When we try to discern our vocation - especially if we might be of the feeling that it could be a supernatural vocation (such as becoming a priest) - we discern in personal and inner prayer. We cotemplate in silence, so that we be able to process what God is telling us.

You see, even though God did some acts that were clearly not "silent", God's first language is silence. Beause this is where He reveals Himself to us. Not through lightning striking from the skies or a split in the earth. But through a small voice in the wind, an almost caressing whisper through which God fully transmits his plan to us humans.

>>576654

>..through which God fully transmits his plan to us humans.

Of course regarding our vocation and what we're ought to do, not "the whole thing".

>Silence teaches us an important rule of clerical life: Lack of emotional detachment does not encourage intimacy, instead is appropriate restraint the requirement for communion with God. In adoration, humanity runs to meet Love. The sacred silence, filled with worshipped presence, gives entrance to the mystic silence, which is full of loving intimacy. Influenced by the way of thinking of a secular world, we forgot that the Sacred and the Liturgy are the only entrance doors to spiritual life.

Robert Cardinal Sarah

>>576602

Maaan, the more I read about Orthodoxy, the more mystical it comes across.

>>576622

>buh-boa

"Thread's dead, baby. Now come on, we gotta go."

>>576901

Just as reminder for everyone: Please don't make this thread a thread about "muh denomination".

(Not that the poster did it, but just as precautionary measure)

>Modern life is tough; it is completely founded on noise, tricks and the tradic rejection of God. In revolutions and conquests, ideologies and political fights, the restless pursuit of "equality" in the neurotic cult of "progress" is silence an impossible thing: Obviously society holds relentless hatred for silence, which is perceived as digusting and backwards/unprogressive defeat.

Robert Cardinal Sarah

>>577344

>>576883

Is this a bad translation?

>>577436

I tried to keep it as accurate as in the book, it's by myself tho, because I don't own it in English.

>>577437

And I'm, of course, not a native English speaker, so bear with me please

>>576883

>>577344

Very wonderful quotes.

>>577344

I just noticed:

>…the tradic rejection of God

That is of course: tragic

>In our prayers, we often find ourselves facing the silence of God. We almost experience a sense of abandonment; it seems that God does not listen and does not respond. But this silence, as happened to Jesus, does not signify absence. Christians know that the Lord is present and listens, even in moments of darkness and pain, of rejection and solitude. Jesus assures His disciples and each one of us that God is well aware of our needs at every moment of our lives

Pope Benedict XVI.

I know there is a Christmas general, but I want to wish everyone merry Christmas anyway. God bless you, whereever and whoever you might be.

>If our “interior cell phone” is always busy because we are “having a conversation” with other creatures, how can the Creator reach us, how can he “call us?

Robert Cardinal Sarah

>By learning how to live the gift of silence in God’s house, we gain that necessary disposition that allows us to truly connect with God and receive more from the Mass.

Fr. Andrew McNair L.C.

Ishaya monk here. We teach meditation.

Yes, the experience of God is the experience of Silence is the experience of God.

>>579015

>Christian meditative prayer has no similarities with eastern paganism and is incompatible with any form of syncretism [citation needed]

>It would be like comparing the Jesus prayer to a mantra which is almost opposite in its intent.

Explain.

>>578957

>Ishaya

https://www.theishayafoundation.org/who-are-the-ishayas.html

>Two thousand years+ ago Jesus the Christ brought forth a teaching and freely shared it with all those willing to hear. However, seeing that humanity was not fully ready to receive it, he asked his apostle John to preserve the teaching of Ascension until such time as humanity was ready. John went to the Himalayas where he founded the Ishaya Order of monks to hold Ascension in its purity through the ages. In the early 1990's Maharishi Sadasiva Isham (MSI) brought Ascension to the U.S. with the permission of the Ishayas to train teachers, teach others and to continue the Ishaya Order.

Utter trash.

>>576557

thats quite a disrespectful and ungodly picture. get off imageboards and go to church

>>579095

I see. I was not familiar with the Jesus Prayer and can see how meditating on it has little value.

I do not care much for the historical claims of the Ishayas. What I do care about is that I went from being an anti-theist who considered theism to be a mental illness, to bathing in the presence of God every day after months of intense meditation (6-8 hours a day). No word, no scripture and no argument has convinced me, but practicing the Ishayas Ascension meditation, I found only Silence; not a vacuum, but a space of grace and peace beyond understanding. Living from that space, I began to experience a divine intelligence at play that was far beyond anything I've experienced so far. There is no belief involved in my theism; there is only the direct experience of God's presence.

That is what I have to say about the Ishaya's Ascension.

>>>As an aid to the practice of good, for we keep silence with man, in order the better to speak with God, because an unguarded tongue dissipates the soul, rendering the mind almost, if not quite, incapable of prayer. The mere abstaining from speech, without this purpose, would be that "idle silence" which St. Ambrose so strongly condemns.

>>>As a preventative of evil. Senica, quoted by Thomas à Kempis complains that "As often as I have been amongst men, I have returned less a man" (Imitation, Book I, c. 20).

>>>The practice of silence involves much self-denial and restraint, and is therefore a wholesome penance, and as such is needed by all.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13790a.htm