Thomas à Kempis’s Solitude and Silence presents two pillars of monastic life to people of any vocation. In this excerpt, à Kempis offers challenging advice for cultivating holy silence and avoiding the perils of excessive speech.
The Virtues of Silence
- By silence, you will retain humility and will adorn yourself with modesty, for keeping silence implies deliberately refraining from making a display of one’s own real or imagined merits, cleverness, and insights before others.
- It is a way of showing respect and obedience towards others by being more ready to listen to them and to defer their judgment.
- Silence is also an effective way of promoting peace and harmony within a community.
The Perils of Excessive Speech
- If a person is accustomed to speaking each and every time he has the opportunity to do so, when shall he be free from words in order to be tranquil and still within himself?
- A person given to such talkativeness is often motivated by a hidden desire to be known to all and to be the center of everyone’s attention.
- The compulsive talker wastes not only his own time and attention, but also the time and attention of those whom he chooses as his listeners.
- Many excessively talkative people implicitly present themselves as experts on all things, as if they are willing and able to give advice to all other persons on all matters. To point out and correct such a tendency (either in oneself or in another person) is an undeniably difficult and painful thing to do. Yet it is often more harmful to let this fault pass uncorrected.
How to Observe Silence in the Secular World
For the person living in the world and following a secular vocation, it is much harder to keep silence than for those in consecrated life, yet it is still possible at times. For those who live in the world and deal with secular business, they should be particularly cautious. For the obligations of constant conversation which fall upon many people in business and the professions make it very difficult not to slip into profane, worldly, or sinful words at times.
Negligence and tolerance of profane speech quickly springs up, unless one keeps constant vigilance. Alas, it very often happens that a person who deals with worldly people and worldly business finds himself saying, as if unintentionally, things which he would have formerly blushed even to hear!
It cannot be denied that there are many occasions when speech is necessary. This includes communication concerning work and practical matters, and also speaking about spiritual perplexities and experiences. Human beings, by their very nature, require at times the counsel or consolation of their brothers or sisters.
Nevertheless, even when conversation is truly necessary, it should not be excessively prolonged, nor should it become too frequent. There are a great many who fall into excessive talkativeness, all the while deceiving themselves that every word they say is somehow indispensably necessary!
Direct Your Speech to God
There are certain persons who, through the grace of faith and devotion, are able to turn to God alone for everything they need. In whatever doubts and perplexities they experience, they seek guidance and consolation not through human channels but through prayer and contemplation. Whenever they sense their soul to be stained by some shadow of vice or uncertainty, they commit the matter entirely to the kind providence and goodness of the almighty Lord.
Indeed, whatever wisdom and encouragement we seem to receive from human beings really comes from God alone. How wise it is, therefore, to turn to God directly, since He is the one source of all our help!
By avoiding all conversations, beyond those which practical necessity or charity and courtesy demand, a person protects himself from innumerable occasions and instances of sin. And, what is more, by virtue of the fact that he does not participate in the exchange of superfluous and vain words, he also preserves others from the occasions of slipping.
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This article is taken from a chapter in Solitude and Silence by Thomas à Kempis which is available from TAN Books.
