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Contemplation and practice feed each other; the two together make up the stage of silence before God. In prayer we remain speechless, we simply place ourselves before the Lord. To a degree, we remain silent in our practice as well, for in our involvements, in our daily work, we do not talk about God all the time; we do indeed live in God, but not by discoursing on God. as Ecclesiastes says, “there is a time to keep silence, and a time to speak” (3:7b). Silence, the time of quiet, is first act and the necessary mediation for the time of speaking about the Lord or doing theology, which is second act.

The time of silence is the time of loving encounter with God and of prayer and commitment; it is a time of “staying with him” (John 1:39). As the experience of human love shows us…