Build fixed islands of silence rather than hoping for them. Keep the first ten minutes after waking without speech and without a screen. Keep a silent stretch of the commute, or a silent walk. Keep silence after Communion, and again after Night Prayer — the monastic Great Silence runs from Compline until Morning Prayer and can be kept in a household with only a little goodwill. Give one quarter of an hour a week to sitting before the Blessed Sacrament with nothing to read. Then remove the noise you have actually chosen: background media left running, the phone that is checked at every pause, talk that fills space rather than saying anything. St Benedict's Rule treats restraint of speech as a virtue in its own right, and it is the easier half of this practice; the harder half is interior. When the silence exposes restlessness, boredom or grief, stay in it and tell God what you find there rather than reaching for distraction. The Catechism calls contemplative prayer silence, the symbol of the world to come — silence is not the absence of prayer but the room it needs.

Verbum Domini treats silence as integral to hearing the Word of God; the Catechism's article on contemplative prayer describes it as a silent love in which the Father speaks his Word into us.

Silence

Monastic in origin; common to the whole Church

About 20 minutes

Daily

silence