Linda - April 10, 2022  - This beautifully articulated gem of wisdom was taken from a book entitled "They Speak By Silences".  Over the years, I've gone to that book again and again because it's full of a deep wisdom borne of silence and solitude, but a wisdom that is so simple to understand and to put into practice.  And also so very comforting!  So much of the gospel - the good news - is really very simple - and this monk spent a lifetime digging up nuggets of these simple truths and passing them on to his brothers in his community.

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But this monk never intended to write a book.  It's only after his death that his writings were carefully collected and published originally in French by the Benedictine nuns of St Priscilla in Rome back in 1948.  The brief foreword read as follows:

 

"The thoughts contained in this little book were from the pen of one who, in the silence of the Charterhouse, had already arrived at the summits of the spiritual heights, and dwelt there unceasingly.  Souls who have reached such perfection in this life are rare; not so rare however, are those who ardently aspire thereto.  it is chiefly for such as these - to encourage and help them to arrive at those same heights - that these thoughts have been preserved and collected." 

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The only thing we know about the author of this book is that he was a monk who held various positions of authority in the Carthusian Order related to the direction of souls and that he must have been quite an extraordinary man.  He had attained union with God on earth.