Being an apricot, I love the summer. I have a large Jurassic Park-style garden behind the presbytery, which grows in all sorts of directions and harbours birds, foxes, and all manner of creepie-crawlies.
At the edge of the lawn, under a sprawling tree, I have a chair—and when I get the chance, I sit there and pray.
Although the garden is overlooked by neighbours, it miraculously guarantees silence. I savour and relish the quiet.

Our 21st-century world is deprived of silence. We are frenetic and addicted to activity and noise.
I’ve written previously about the negatives of computers and mobile phones, but they also bring the addition of earbuds or headphones that blast music and news into our ears.
About the only place I don’t see these fixtures of din is in church (thank the good Lord), or when I attend a school assembly… but they seem to be everywhere else.

The curious fact is that constant noise is used as a form of torture in places where human life is disregarded and prisoners’ rights ignored.
Yet silence is the realm where God speaks, and our souls—free of noise—can listen. As Saint Mother Teresa said, “God is the friend of silence.”
No wonder we claim not to hear God or doubt His existence, if we never enter a quiet space to let Him speak.

I often tell my parishioners to wake a little earlier, make a cup of coffee or tea, and sit in silence.
To first acknowledge that God is with them by saying an Our Father, and then to talk inwardly with Him about joys and troubles.
Then, to be silent—and if distracted, to focus on Jesus sitting beside them (coffee cup in hand), present to them as He was to Mary in Martha’s house.
It is in that silence that the sweetness of God will fill your soul.

You might feel the courage to face a task, or you might receive confirmation that the Lord will walk beside you in the day ahead.
Then, before returning to the noisy world, say a “Glory Be” for having been in God’s presence.
It need only take ten or twenty minutes.

I am certainly not a spiritual master, but the value of silence and prayer has been taught to me by the myriad of saints, both living and dead.
Try it.