HOLY SILENCE

A cool breeze Moves through the Late afternoon like a Generous thought. Unhurried Unannounced Loosening the hold of the new Heat, which waits patiently To take on everything and Everyone. Never asking, just arriving and Demanding summer. But the wind, sudden and full, Spills out from the ocean and Stretches across the sky Insisting on spring and lots of laughter The most human of sounds. Unguarded, contagious, and Committed to briefly abolishing All the seriousness of life. R

There is a black obelisk that Rose without warning. Ominous, absolute, and indifferent. Quaintly called 'the silent treatment,' It was erected without consent Like a monolith from an ancient, merciless cosmos. Its surface offers nothing. No handhold and no reflection, No light and no warmth. You circle it day in and day out. You try to speak to it. You implore, but it gives nothing. This is not absence. It is a presence. A deliberate, destructive dark energy. Its purpose is t

A short reflection to help you deepen your relationship with the Holy Spirit. Read : "If the Holy Spirit is peace of soul ... as He is in reality, and if anger is disturbance of heart, as it actually is ... then nothing so prevents His presence in us as anger" (St. John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent , Step 8: On Freedom from Anger, #14). Ponder: Anger is a killer that destroys our relationship with God, self, and others. Here are a few steps we can take to reduce or e

Have you ever stepped outside Just before sunrise and Right after sunset? What did you notice? The sun, certainly. And the moon, too. But what about them? Each arrived with a unique, and equally Exquisite opening act. Both disappeared with their own Version of a curtain call, too. But in different ways. The sun is bold and generous. It floods the world with deep Confidence, knowing, and purpose. Its setting is a lavish surrender of Molten amber, dusky rose, and slow ceremony

You begin to forget who you were before them. The silence they weaponized taught you to shrink. Every room became a minefield, you learned to read the air before breathing it. Their voice replaced your own, until doubt felt more familiar than certainty. You isolated not because you wanted solitude, but because explaining the inexplicable exhausted you. You scanned faces, tones, and pauses for danger. You became a student of someone else's moods, a stranger to your own. The cr

A short reflection to help you deepen your relationship with the Holy Spirit. Read : "Do not go outside, return within yourself; in the inner man dwells truth," (Bl. Augustine, On True Religion ). Ponder: Augustine's call to turn inward reminds us that the Holy Spirit is the indwelling presence of God. In other words, the third person of the Most Holy Trinity does not remain aloof and closed up in the heavenly kingdom. He also lives within us and permeates our body, mind, and