JESUS LIVING IN MARY:
HANDBOOK OF THE SPIRITUALITY OF ST. LOUIS DE MONTFORT
SILENCE
Summary
I. Rhythms of Silence in Montforts Life.
II. Canticle of Silence:
1. Silence as victory over evils of the tongue;
2. Value of silence;
3. Rules for speaking well;
4. A Message to sanctimonious people;
5. Prayer.
III. Spiritual Dimensions of Silence According to Montfort:
1. Sanctification of silence;
2. Silence and spiritual maturity:
a. Silence and Wisdom,
b. Silence and cultivation of the Tree of Life.
IV. Silence and Montfort Spirituality Today:
1. Need for silence today;
2. The Montfort spirit.
I. Rhythms of Silence in Montforts Life
A liking for silence was a constant in Montforts life, and many of the
rhythms of silence were evident over the course of his life. Silence had
a variety of meanings and motivations for him in the course of lifes
trials. Sometimes his silence seemed an avoidance of the world, a
tendency to isolation and inactivity. Actually, though, the silence of
Montforts lived experience was a silence filled with reverence for God.
It was a silence that not only led him to prayer, but flowered into an
active zeal to communicate with others in order to glorify God. Even in
childhood according to Grandet, his first biographer he was distancing
himself from the company of young people his age, from worldly persons,
and [he was] avoiding taking part in their amusements, and Louis Marie
would withdraw to some corner of the house to pray.1
It is particularly interesting that his childhood experience of silence
and prayer did not turn Montfort into himself. Instead, it caused him to
become more unselfish, especially in to comforting his mother. He urged
his younger sister and his companions to prayer.2
At Rennes, according to his hagiographer, Blain, Louis Marie was
socially reserved.3 The example, influence, and training of the Jesuit
shis teachers at the College fostered in him a taste for God. He was
struck by the heroic silence of Father Gilbert, when the boys ridiculed
him.4 In his youth, Louis Marie was regarded by his fellow student
Blain as born with a most profound memory, and with a constancy of
prayer.5
At Paris, this tendency to silence grew, since the director of his
residence, Father de la Barmondière, placing no limits on his own
fervor, gave free rein to that of his disciple. Then Louis fervor
became practically continuous, nothing could stop it, so strongly did
he seem drawn to God. He prayed several hours a day, and gave a great
deal of time to spiritual reading.6
It is certain that under the influence of mystical authors like Surin,
and following his own inclination, Louis Marie opted for the science of
the saints. Silence, recollection, mortification, and austerities were
its important ingredients.7 Even in his leisure time he chose
recollection. He wanted only to converse with Jesus and Mary.
His superiors judged his intense life of contemplation to be dangerous.
They prevailed upon him to relax during his periods of recreation. On a
pilgrimage to Chartres as a seminarian, he experienced a remarkable time
of union with God and the Blessed Virgin, interrupted only by the
zealous deeds it moved him to perform. Kneeling before the Blessed
Virgin in the underground chapel, he persevered for six or seven
continuous hours, from early morning till noon, motionless, and as if in
ecstasy.8 His companion was amazed at how a young person could be
recollected for nearly an entire day without interruption. He was in awe
at how Montfort remained in a kind of profound prayer of ecstasy.9
At the Saint-Clément residence for priests in Nantes, Montfort lived a
special period of silence, devoting himself earnestly to the task of
spiritual discernment. He had moved into the community of Father
Lévêque, intending to be trained for the missions, but he had become
disappointed: the community prevented him from realizing his hope. This
difficulty thrust him into a period of deep discernment. In it he
discovered the nature of his secret attraction for a hidden life in
which I can efface myself and combat my natural tendency to show off (L
5).
Later, after the failures in the Poitiers and Paris poorhouses, he would
wonder whether, in order to abandon himself to this powerful attraction
[to prayer], he should not refrain from, or at least suspend for a time,
the functions of the ministry.10 But Montfort came to see this
ostensible calling to the eremitical life as a temptation against the
apostolic vocation which won out in him. He wrote, my own inclinations
. . . have always been and still are for mission work (L 11).
Montfort himself testified to the meaning of silence when, in 1702, at
Poitiers, he was the object of criticism and persecution because of the
reforms he had introduced in the poorhouse: During this painful period,
I kept silent and lived in retirement putting my cause into the hands of
God and relying on his help. . . . To this end I went for a weeks
retreat to the Jesuits (L 11). Montforts silence was not a simple
absence of words or activity. It belonged to the mystical dimension of
Yahwehs poor, who, in trusting silence, looked to God for salvation
(Lam 3:26; Ps 37:7; Isa 10:15). It was a silence filled with trust in
God Alone, a silence bound to the Cross, the consequence of evangelical
choices. Whenever he met the Cross, then, Montfort did not complain but
turned to silence, accepting with reverence Gods will. This was how the
missionary behaved when the vicar general of Poitiers publicly
reprimanded him for indiscreet zeal.11 Not that Montfort was insensitive
to humiliations and crosses; the famous case of the Pontchateau calvary
was proof enough of this. On September 13, 1710, he received an emissary
of the bishop of Nantes who ordered him not to proceed with the blessing
of the site. The missionary traveled all night to Nantes to speak to the
bishop, who confirmed what he had ordered Montfort to do. Father Olivier
attested that a few days later, while reading a letter in which the
bishop demanded that he destroy the Calvary, Montfort burst into
tears.12
Periods of silence punctuated Montforts life. Sometimes it was by
necessity, at other times it was by choice. The bishops prevented his
missionary activities, but he profited from these periods of rest by
living a life of more intense prayer and by writing the works that
extended his preaching on the subjects dearest to his heart: Wisdom, the
Cross, the Rosary, and so on. He also tasted the eloquent silence (H
157:13) of a nature as yet unspoiled by the heavy footstep of man. The
Mervent woods, the hermitages of St. Eloi and St. Lazare, are three
places dear to Montfort and to the Montfort tradition. They remind us of
the missionarys determination to alternate between proclaiming the Word
in action, and listening in silence. Montforts silence was always the
silence of the contemplation of God Alone, the silence of adoration and
wonderment in the presence of the Ineffable, a silence of ongoing
availability to God, a silence in the spirit of the beatitudes, which
Wisdom has taught us in order to set us free from the blindness in which
sin has cast us (LEW 153).
Montforts writings later explained his idea of silence and furnish us
with a key for the interpretation of the silent rhythms that punctuated
his existence.
II. Canticle of Silence
Montfort devotes an entire metrical composition, forty-nine couplets
long, to silence: The Wisdom of Silence (H 23). We shall use this
canticle as a starting place in order to enter into Montforts idea of
silence. This hymn, like those on other virtues, actually constitutes a
little treatise. A very precise order has been observed in its mode of
presentation. The marginal notes offer us (although, unfortunately, they
break off at couplet 31) the essential structure of the canticle, which
has five parts. After giving a basic definition of silence, the closing
of the mouth and heart to creatures in order to be perfect and to
glorify the Lord (H 23:1), Montfort dedicates several couplets to
illustrating the five points of his idea of silence.
1. Silence as victory over evils of the tongue (2-11)
Inspired by the well known passage Jas 3:5-10, against intemperance in
language, Montfort groups together the motivations which guard a person
against the inordinate use of the tongue. He disciplines this little
piece of flesh (H 23:3) and uses a flood of metaphors to do so:
poisoned dart, sword soft but deadly, terrible monster (H 23:3, 4,
7). Montfort lists the sins committed by the tongue: swearing, cursing,
outbursts, blasphemy, and so on. He concludes by calling the tongue the
compendium of all iniquities (H 23:5) and proposes silence as the
infallible remedy for this great evil (H 23:7). Putting the title of
the canticle to use, Montfort contrasts the chatterbox with the wise
person: the former is a big ball full of air, . . . an empty pot (H
23:8-10).
2. Value of silence (12-20)
While the first point urges an avoidance of the sinful use of the
tongue, the second dwells in a positive way on the excellence of
silence. The basic idea was that silence was not some empty, sterile
thing but a reality filled with hidden treasure, fostering a high
spirituality. Silence is the divine training school of divine thoughts
and intense joys (H 23:12), a divine school for learning to speak well
(H 23:13), the father of prayer, . . . the companion of wisdom, . . .
the book of the wise and the ignorant (H 23:14-16). Silence
interiorized a faith which without it would become sterile and
wavering (H 23:17). Saint Louis Marie gives concrete examples of
silence: God, Who spoke very little ad extra, outside, but so much ad
intra, within; Christ, who for thirty years kept silence; Mary, who
stored up in her heart the most divine words; the saints, for whom
silence was a beatitude (H 23:18-20). Montfort adds that the lesson of
silence also comes from the sages of Greece, who preserved their quiet
precisely in order to obtain the gift of a great wisdom (H 23:20).
3. Rules for speaking well (21-32)
Having convinced the reader of the importance of silence, Montfort moves
on to outlining the practical norms: how and when to speak. Surely
one must speak prudently, in order to avoid irreparable evils;
rarely, in order to accord listening the primacy; truly, without
lying; charitably, in order to edify; wisely, without being
persistent; modestly, or in a low voice; humbly, without adopting a
magisterial tone; and holily, without hypocrisy or human respect (H
23:23-29). As to times and places, Montfort specified that one should
avoid speaking in church, since it would be an irreverence to God (H
23:31-32).
4. A Message to sanctimonious people (33-43)
Taking as his point of departure the question of speaking in church,
Montfort delivers a humorous diatribe against sanctimonious people.
Playing on words, he bemoans the blindly devout, who ceaselessly
chatter and risk holily to be damned by devout language (H 23:33). His
description of a devout chatterbox is well done: Talking of every idle
thing, / prattling round the clock, / gazing first this way, then that,
/ racing from street to street, / nosing into any novelty / O pious one
and lost! (H 23:24). Tirelessly, Montfort proceeds in this tone, with
women especially in mind: Oh, yes, the nasty thing loves to talk! / she
cannot shut her mouth! / bad talk, grumbling, babbling / Her one sole
business! (H 23:37).
He poetically attacks the faddish devout person. He could not abide
her pretentious patristic references (She cites Augustine, Jerome,
Hilary) publicly displaying her knowledge. Noticing, however, that she
has gone too far, she decides to break off: Im saying too much, Ill
stop (H 23:43).
5. Prayer (45-49)
Montfort feels a need to conclude the hymn by imploring God to help him
to control his tongue and begin then to practice silence. He asks for
the strength to curb his tongue, and for a burning coal to purify his
lips. Taking up once more his initial idea of silence, Montfort proposes
to close off his senses to creatures and to open his heart to God Alone:
Lord, speak to my heart! (H 23:46). A speech addressed to God Alone is
the wise persons ideal (H 23:47).
On this note, of contrasting God and creatures, Montfort brings his
Canticle of Silence to a close. Precisely because of this note, it
should to be situated in the Saint-Sulpice period, when the influence of
Surin and Boudon especially encouraged Louis Marie the seminarian to
concentrate on prayer and silence.
III. Spiritual dimensions of Silence According to Montfort
The topic of silence also appears in Montforts other writingssometimes
from different points of view not considered in Hymn 23. We shall try to
point them out, grouping them under two aspects dear to Montforts
heart.
1. Sanctification of silence
Montfort insisted on the exterior observance of silence. To the
Daughters of Wisdom he recommended they be very firm in keeping silence
and seeing that it is kept in the community and in the school (L 29). He
regarded silence as necessary in the schools (RW 282), given childrens
tendency to laugh and shout. He asked the missionaries of the Company of
Mary to keep silence, especially during meals, and when they retired for
the night (RM 34, 72, 77). He recommended that the Daughters of Wisdom
faithfully observe silence at all times save during the two hours of
recreation after meals and whenever charity, obedience or the duties of
their office require them to do otherwise (RW 75). As we see, it was not
a question of setting rigid rules and observing them mechanically.
Silence was not an absolute value but something to be ruled by charity
and obedience. When a Sister interrupted her silence because her task
demanded it, she should not see herself at fault (RW 262). With his
practical sense, Montfort put the Daughters of Wisdom on their guard not
only against the longing women ordinarily have to talk (RW 82) but also
against being so taciturn by their misplaced silence that they become
ordinarily burdensome in any conversation (RW 229).
Silence and speech ought to be regulated, Montfort went further and
demanded that silence be sanctified. Sanctify your silence (RW 85).
How was one to sanctify silence? While linking silence both with Wisdom
and with the Cross (TD 273; LEW 200; H 100:45), Montfort preferred to
join silence to prayer to your holy silence and your continual prayer
(PS 3:2): They will . . . engage in silent prayer (PS 3:4). I love to
pray in secret, in silence (H 12:24). Sanctify your silence by vocal
or mental prayer, according to your inclination (RW 85). The silence
that St. Louis Marie wanted was an open space for an encounter with God
in prayer.
For Montfort, the special places of silence were in the outer world and
within the inner I. In the presence of natural creationin the shadows
of the forest, beside clear waters, at the mouths of deep caverns, and
amidst all the beauties of nature, he experienced an eloquent silence
(H 157:13) and cried out, What silence! What talk! (H 155:12). Nature
actually conveyed spiritual messages, which sometimes protested the
pollution generated by human beings: These immobile rocks / look
innocent enough / but condemn the cities / with their air so vile! (H
99:24). While God was everywhere, there was a special inner, hidden
place where the divine presence reigned: the human heart. Montfort made
Augustines invitation his own In teipsum redi: return within thyself!
when he said: Let us all return within ourselves, / in secret, in
silence, / to see God present there / more than in any other place (H
24:39).
2. Silence and spiritual maturity
Montforts discourse on silence was connected with the Marian
Christocentric spirituality that he lived and taught to others. From
this standpoint, silence was necessary for acquiring Wisdom and for the
cultivating of the Tree of Life.
a. Silence and Wisdom.
First, it was Wisdom Incarnate that furnished us with the example of an
ineffable, paradoxical silence. The mystery of the Incarnation brings us
into the silence of that wonder-filled nine months sojourn for Jesus in
Marys virginal womb; From the outset He would fain / repose in silence
there, / to offer Himself to the Father Eternal / upon the altar of her
heart (H 134:2).
Montforts hymns spoke of the manger of Bethlehem as the paradox of the
Eternal Word of the Father, reduced to the silence of a tiny, speechless
infant! Montfort manifested his astonishment in Bérullian terms: The
Eternal is one day old. / The Word falls silent (H 57:1). All wrapped
in silence, little Jesus was nonetheless eloquent with his smile and his
tenderness, which ravished the hearts of the shepherds and the magi
(H 9:5). Montfort insisted: This dear child, today / speaks to us in
His silence (H 61:2) and revealed to us, in poverty, his immense love.
As a grown-up, Jesus continued to give us examples of a life of silence,
when he kept silence for thirty years at Nazareth (H 23:18) and
sojourned for forty days in the desert: All without drinking or eating,
/ in silence, in prayer (H 16:7).
If silence marked the coming of Wisdom among us, then it ought to
typify, as well, those who go in quest of Wisdom. For Montfort, it will
not do merely to declare that the sage is a silent one (H 23:11). One
must endow silence with a Christological dimension: Be silent with
others, so as to converse with the divine Wisdom (LEW 200). It was not
surprising that Montfort insisted on mental prayer, which, as words
fall still, disposes the soul to listen to the voice of Wisdom, to
savor his delights and possess his treasures (LEW 193).
b. Silence and the cultivation of the Tree of Life.
Montfort revealed his secret of holiness in The Secret of Mary. It is an
abbreviation of his Marian doctrine and spirituality anyone can
understand and appreciate. In its conclusion, he included a little code
for the spiritual life, entitled Care and Growth of the Tree of Life
(SM 70-78). He identified six counsels for cultivating this Tree. He
developed the primary forms of behavior in a Christian who welcomed Mary
into his or her life and wished to be receptive, open, and available to
God. He nuanced that complex attitude which gives birth to authentic
silence, and which manifests its profound wealth. The Tree is planted in
the soul by the Holy Spirit. It is ones gift of oneself to Jesus
through Marys hands. It must be cultivated. To this end, Montfort
exhorts us to rein ourselves in, to enter and to remain in an atmosphere
steeped in silence: the silence of a gaze directed on God, of attention
to God, of contemplation (SM 72). It is plain, then, that one cannot
rely on ones simple human talents, or on the support of other people.
One must impose silence on the instinctive need for human props. One
must have recourse, instead, to the help of Mary (SM 71). If ones gaze
is fixed on God, the divine light shows the obstacles that harm the
cultivation of the Tree of Life useless pleasures, vain occupations and
it shows the soul the need for mortification and self-control. Here
Montforts reference to silence is explicit. One must keep a guard over
the tongue, and mortify the bodily senses (SM 73). In order to
cultivate the Tree of Life, continual prayer is very important, a prayer
overflowing with faith, and made strong by public prayer and the
Sacraments (SM 96). At this point, Montfort foresees that the
storm-winds of temptation will threaten to bring it down, and snow and
frost tend to smother it (SM 77). This was the fate foreseen for TD as
well. It will be buried in the darkness and silence of a chest (TD
114). This should not be surprising for it falls into the divine logic
of the first being last and the last first. The fruit of the Tree of
Life is Jesus, who is, was, and will always be the fruit of Mary. Happy
the soul which savors the sweetness of Marys fruit and preserves it up
till death and then beyond to all eternity (SM 78)!
IV. Silence and Monfort Spirituality Today
In view of mans need for silence today, Montforts thoughts on it seem
especially relevant.
1. Need for silence today
It is clearly evident that in todays world, there is an urgent need to
rediscover an atmosphere of silence. We live in a noisy society with a
pop culture overwhelmed by the deafening sound of its music. Noise
camouflages the ceaseless, unconfessed fear of discovering an inner
void. Carl Jung, the celebrated psychologist observed: Most people fear
silence when the continual noise assaulting their worldly antennae falls
still. For one must constantly be acting, speaking, whistling, singing,
coughing, or mumbling something. The need for noise is all but
insatiable, even if at times the noise is unbearable. Personal growth
is arrested by such a banal form of existence. People may never achieve
authentic existence because they remain mired in world of chatter.
Prattle is the shame of language, Blanchot said.13 One must agree:
chatter is speaking for speakings sake emitting noises, not sounds;
and unfortunately, in our day babbling has become our speech, from the
politician to the theologian.14 Yet everywhere we see a quest for
silence and for great relaxation. People are fond of taking vacations in
a rural atmosphere, far out in the country, where the air is pure. This
may be in order to defend ourselves, says Romano Guardini, against
the everlasting flow of chatter that floods the world, like a person
afflicted with bronchial congestion who earnestly wants to breathe
freely. The attraction to yoga, Zen, a technique enabling a so-called
immersion in the river of being, the quest for spiritual masters of the
East, for experts on the inner rather than on the outer world, all seems
to be on the upsurge. Schools of prayer, hermitages, and charismatic
groups of all forms and types are multiplying. Nor do we lack books on
silence, or theological symposia on silence. What we do lack is more
people who will seek their mysterious silence in the authentic eternal
silence of the Father, Who is the hidden depth of utterance, the goal
and native land of the obedience of faith in the Verbum, the Word.15
The need for silence is evident. On one level it is a need with its
origin in the stress of physical and psychological fatigue; in
discouragement, in the bitter, unaccepted realization of ones own
limits, helplessness, failures. On a deeper level it is a call to rest
in God.
Fruitful silence is taught by Holy Scripture: It is good to wait in
silence for the salvation of the Lord (Lam 3:26). Silence before him,
all the earth! (Hab 2:20). Silence implies casting our gaze upon God,
upon His transcendence, upon His love. This is the faith of silence. It
listens in order to respond in prayer and obedience. It is a humble
silence, which defeats selfishness and discovers God, the Absolute, the
Ineffable.
2. The Montfort spirit
Montfort lived this gospel silence before God Alone. He listened to
Gods Word. The lesson emerging from Montforts life is that one must
learn to alternate between silence and word, between contemplation and
proclamation, between direct dialogue with God and missionary activity
among ones brothers and sisters. Montfort portrayed silence in its
various dimensions, presenting it as a positive reality, as a path to
Wisdom and as a basic factor in spiritual growth. Human beings must
discover that it is essential that their lives lead to God, and to live
in Gods presence. Otherwise they will remain outside life, like a fish
out of water, Montfort says (H 24:19). Silence has meaning and fecundity
if it is conscious of the presence of God. Montfort sings this for
thirty-nine couplets, in which he sets forth the motivations and
counsels concerning the holy practice of Gods presence (H 24). And
above all, Montfort proposes silence before the mystery of God and
assimilation of the Wisdom of the Gospel. The mystery of Christ as
Eternal Wisdom, incarnate in Mary for mans salvation, is the radiant
center of Montfort spirituality, the unifying viewpoint that imparts a
particular coloration to a way of living the whole Christian life.16 In
the elements and nuances of the particular Montfort shading of the
Christian life, we find, doubtless, that intimate silence of the soul
that, in Montforts school, reveals a secret of sanctity in an
incarnational spirituality. Here is the mystery of contemplative
silence, of wonder in the presence of a God truly lavish with himself
in his desire to be with man! (LEW 71). Through the mighty realism of
his couplets, a style of his era, Montfort displayed a vision of the
specific, concrete sufferings of the Passion, suffered and endured by
Jesus without a murmur. Piously, in seven hymns (H 128-34), he sang of
the silence of the incarnate word in the Eucharist. We note the nuances
in feelings Montfort expressed about various aspects of Jesus silence
in the Eucharist. They are praise, wonder, gratitude, and lament at
humans incomprehension, and desire for reparation by a great love. And
Father de Montforts silence is a contemplation of the pleasure and
satisfaction of Jesus in his Eucharistic relationship with Mary. Sister
Marie Louise of Jesus, Montforts disciple, contemplated this mystery of
silence in a mystical state, feeling called as she did to become an
image of the silence of God throughout eternity and the silence of Jesus
in the Eucharist.17 And this is the silence of Wisdom, says Montfort.
Silence is the guide and guardian of the soul, the fuel of its flame.
Silence and Wisdom are inseparable (H 23:15). Only through an experience
of authentic silence, an interior attitude of freedom, humility, and
contemplation, can we fully grasp Montforts call to center our lives on
the quest and contemplation of Wisdom, who has become flesh for us. Here
we discover the mystery of Mary, her place willed by God in the divine
salvific plan: An associate of unique nobility, and the Lords humble
handmaid (LG 61). In his spirituality, Montfort proposes attitudes to
be fostered by special interior practices for those who wish to be
perfect (TD 258-65). Montforts proposal cannot be lived apart from a
profound silence: a silence of the soul that allows itself to be guided
by the Spirit of God, Who has power to lead it to the gift of mystical
silence. This is the gift to which Montfort himself testifies when he
says: Behold the unbelievable: / I carry Our Lady in the midst of me, /
graven in strokes of glory, / Although in the darkness of faith (H
77:15).
Notes:
(1) Grandet, 3-4. (2) Ibid., 2-3. (3) Blain, 2. (4) Ibid., 2-
4. (5) Ibid., 8. (6) Ibid., 25. (7) Itinerario, 178-79. (8) Blain,
100. (9) Ibid., 101. (10) Ibid., 117. (11) Grandet, 92. (12) Grandet,
161-62. (13) M. Blanchot, Lamitié (Friendship), Gallimard, Paris 1971,
145. (14) M. Baldini, Le dimensioni del silenzio nella poesia, nella
filosofia . . . (The dimensions of silence in Poetry, in Philosophy,
Etc.), Città Nuova, Rome 1988, 9. (15) B. Forte, Teologia della storia:
Saggio sulla rivelazione, linizio e il compimento (Theology of History:
Essay on Revelation, the Beginning and the Fulfillment), Edizioni
Paoline, Cinisello Balsamo, Italy 1991, 63-64. (16) A. Bossard, Le
mystère de la Sagesse éternelle incarnée en Marie pour le salut du monde
(The Mystery of the Eternal and Incarnate Wisdom in Mary for the
Salvation of the World), in DMon (September 1986), 2. (17) Lettres de
Marie Louise de Jésus, private printing, Generalate of the Daughters of
Wisdom, Rome 1981, 11.
Taken from: Jesus Living in Mary: Handbook of the Spirituality of St.
Louis de Montfort (Litchfield, CT: Montfort Publications, 1994).
Provided courtesy of the Montfort Fathers © All Rights Reserved.
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