Enjoy a time of rest in an exceptional setting
In this article
Why do we talk so much about the value of silence in an abbey or monastery?
"Silence is a little bit of heaven descending toward man"
What do you mean Silence is a little bit of heaven descending toward man? What point can we see in silence when the bass and beats of festivals can joyfully set the rhythm for beautiful days? What point, when noisy but news-bearing notifications abound? Indeed, silence: our era fills it up, and we're more accustomed to dodging it.
We're also used to equating silence with emptiness. But emptiness doesn't seem very good, and we don't really like it. So... how wrong we are, because in reality it's the opposite! A spiritual retreat in an abbey is the perfect time to fill up on silence, a silence that reveals itself to be... very full. Let us explain!
Why so much noise?
You come home from a good evening out, pursued by engine noises and city sirens, only to hear your tinnitus ringing once you're in bed. Tomorrow, you'll have to deal with the incessant chatter of that friend with the less-than-melodious voice...
In short, there's a natural need in everyone to find themselves in peace and quiet from time to time. To reach this calm, you have to go through silence. Just to think for a moment, without music, without advertising images stealing our available "brain time." At RITRIT, we have some advice, a proposal for you: go on a spiritual retreat!
Going away to rest a little, far from the daily tumult
And the best place for that is to go to an abbey or monastery. It's even the very nature of such a place, as chapter VI of the Rule of Saint Benedict highlights: "Sometimes we must avoid speaking, even to say good things. And that, out of love for silence."
Yes! Silence, when you're lucky enough to have a moment of it, is to be tasted, to be savored. Think of Simon and Garfunkel in "The Sound Of Silence"! This sublime piece, carried by a simple guitar and two delicate voices, laments those who "talk without speaking" and those who "hear without listening"...
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The need to disconnect and find a soothing silence
It's not about monks never expressing themselves, but rather about weighing their words, because silence is conducive to unusual encounters for people from the world. With oneself, with others differently (no awkwardness, we promise), with God if one seeks Him.
You'll see that during good meals shared in silence with the monks, the glances that sparkle from shining eyes are at least as meaningful as words! It's even quite amusing.
The monks take great pleasure in dialoguing with the retreatants they welcome, whether they are atheists or believers, or even of another religion! They express themselves quite often with a wisdom that the perspective of a life outside the world affords them.
Outside the world, because abbeys are mostly located in magnificent nature, away from cities. The paths around them echo only with natural sounds. The wind in the trees participates in the silence. It enhances it more than it fills it.
Under Romanesque ribbed vaults or in thousand-year-old cloisters, magnificent Gregorian chants resonate serenely: silence is inhabited by music that cradles our memories as we walk through the corridors.
Students who decide to go study in an abbey also find there the silence that's lacking at home (because of a sibling group that's perhaps a bit too full of life, for example)!
Making room for silence to let great questions germinate
So, silence is not emptiness. It is filled, and constitutes the best way to turn toward oneself. To turn toward oneself, to discover yourself, to know yourself, to reflect and make important decisions...
To concentrate, because you don't make good decisions in noise, which sometimes stifles interiority. When do you take time on purpose (and not by default) to reflect on your life, on the meaning you give it? Here's a golden opportunity.
Finally, being able to hear yourself, letting rise what our deep interiority contains, sitting or walking in a beautiful place! Perhaps even (and why not?), letting the prayer that we carry within ourselves, instinctively, have the space to unfold toward the heights.
The fruits to harvest within yourself upon return
So, returning from your spiritual retreat, you'll enjoy rhythms even more, you'll hear better what's worth hearing among the flow of daily life!
Quality listening is a gift you give yourself, and that you give to your loved ones! A retreat is all benefits.
From now on, all you have to do is listen to yourself and book here your spiritual retreat: you're spoiled for choice, there's definitely an abbey near you!
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