When was the last time you sat or stood in pure silence? Those few moments before you fall asleep don’t count. It’s hard to find a time, isn’t it?

This weekend, I attended the Campus Ministry-sponsored Silent Retreat, which was my first ever. The retreat was centered on the spiritual exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola.  

While there were times for group and partner sharing of our prayer experiences, we spent the majority of our time at the Gainey Conference Center in silence.

The times that were allotted for speaking were sparse and precious to us.

There was also little music during this retreat. At some meals, there was light piano music, and we sang one song together Saturday night. Other than that, there wasn’t much to listen to. Just the footsteps through the conference center, chewing of food, clanking of dishes and the retreat leaders giving talks or suggested prayer reflections.

As a communication and journalism major, I always want to communicate with others. Of course, there were ways around this. I became a master at the “good morning,” “good to see you,” and “how are you doing?” smiles.

I found myself treasuring the words I was able to speak; savoring phrases like “what time should I set the alarm for?” and “good night.”

Why was this? The phrases don’t have much impact in our day-to-day experiences. But they were the only words I could utter. In a whisper, of course.

How often do we talk just for the sake of it? I realized that sometimes I talk for a long time about something, trying to make myself sound like I know more about a topic.

The whole point of the retreat is to spend an entire weekend in silent, reflective prayer. Yes, I found that on the retreat and gained more strength in my prayer life than I ever could have imagined. But I also took away from it a greater appreciation for being open to hearing the Lord and others.

It shouldn’t take much effort to try and shut my mouth when I want to speak and instead listen to what someone has to say. Not just hear it like a machine and spit back a generic response, but trying to understand where a person is coming from when they say something and why they’re telling you.

Maybe this is something we can all strive for: talking less and listening more.

This weekend helped to remind me how the words I say do mean something and are important, but I should use them more wisely.

“You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger.” – James 1:19

Caroline Rode can be reached at rode8318@stthomas.edu.