I am struggling with my prayer life at the moment. I have always felt that I can talk to God, I have been able to feel his love on the whole. I have gone through times in my life when I don't feel him usually because I've stopped looking. Even when I walk away, when my hated blinds me, I can still feel him, hand on my shoulder waiting patiently for me to return.
"The interior man is aware that times of silence are demanded by love of God. As a rule he needs a certain solitude so that he may hear God 'speaking to his heart.' It must be stressed that a silence which is a mere absence of noise and words, in which the soul cannot renew its vigor, would obviously lack any spiritual value. It could even be harmful to fraternal charity, if at that moment it were essential to have contact with other. On the contry, the search for intimacy with God involves the truly vital need of a silence embracing the whole being, both for those who must find God in the midst of noise and confusion and for contemplatives. Faith, hope and a love for God which is open to the gifts of the Spirit, and also a brotherly love which is open to the mystery of others, carry with them an impereative need for silence."
Vatican II pg 701
I've been reading this over and over and over again lately. I really don't understand it. On the one hand I feel like it's telling me that the only way to be close to God is through silence and it's a must within the Catholic faith. However, I also read it as saying that silence is different to each individual. As individuals we have to discover our own silence, in what ever form that is, and allow ourselves to experience God through that.
With the silent prayer that we do in community, I have never felt so far away from God in my life. I used to have a great prayer life, I used to talk to him daily, Mass was a highlight of the week. Now though there is nothing. No silence. No love. No light. No dark. Just nothing.
I wish someone could show me why silence is such a big freaking deal. Why does it make you closer to God? All it's going for me, is making me not sleep, making me feel like a real freak, making me hate myself, making me jealous, making me frustrated.... why can't my personal prayer time be something that works for me so that I can have that relationship with God.
