A New Awakening and an Increase in Love

When silence is more precious than many words.

Teresa Benedicta of the Cross was the religious name of Edith Stein (1891-1942), a German Jewish philosopher who converted to Catholicism, became a Carmelite nun, only to eventually die in the Auschwitz Nazi death camp, two months before her 51st birthday. She left behind an impressive body of philosophical writing, including several books that were explicitly Christian in tone, including her study of the spirituality of St. John of the Cross, The Science of the Cross, from which the following quotation — describing the experience of acquired contemplation — comes:

There is scarcely any need for words between them [the Holy Spirit and the contemplative soul]. Of course, every time they are together again there is both a new awakening and an increase of love, perhaps also a learning of new individual traits, but this happens almost of itself, one need not trouble oneself about it. This applies to the relationship of a soul with God after a lengthy practice in the spiritual life. She no longer needs to meditate in order to love and to come to know God. The path lies far in the past, she has arrived at her goal. As soon as she sets herself to pray she is with God and, in loving surrender, remains in his presence. Her silence is more precious to him than many words. — Edith Stein

I so love passages like this one, written in the early 1940s, because it is clear evidence that contemplative Christian spiritual practice is not just some contemporary fad that hippies and new agers thought up (which, believe it or not, is what some critics of practices like Centering Prayer seem to believe).

Edith Stein deftly links prayer, meditation, contemplation, silence, and wordless prayer together in a single expression of meaningful spiritual practice. She points out to us that to place ourselves in the Divine Presence means to experience “both a new awakening and an increase in love” and to reach a place where words are simply unnecessary.

This is subversive, especially to the overly talkative nature of so much of Christian theology and philosophy. If I made such a bold statement, philosophers and scholars might dismiss it as the “sour grapes” ranting of someone without academic credentials. But when a person of the intellectual stature of Edith Stein reminds us that silence is a higher calling than even the most eloquent and elegant language, it is worth taking notice.

Language is a gift from God, so we may acknowledge that it is a gift to speak our relationship with the Divine. But it is not a gift that serves all people in all circumstances. It is helpful to remember that words fail us, silence is there to help us continue to walk deeper into the mystical life.

Quotation source: Edith Stein, from The Science of the Cross (p. 176). Kindle Edition.