On Day 75 we talked about noise, on day 77 we talked about sound, yesterday we talked about melody and today is song, and yet the title of the book is “The Power of Silence”. The first time I read the book I thought, okay Cardinal Sarah help me connect the dots?

It was only after reading the book for the third time did, I connect the dots. I came to the understanding that the most beautiful song is the song of God’s love for me, and I hear the song loudest in the deepest recesses of my heart.

Today, Cardinal Sarah points to St. John of the Cross and one of St. John’s many quotes about God’s love says, “Silence is God’s First Language”. I immediately thought about the moment I held my children for the first time. We looked into each other’s eyes and w/o words God’s love spoke.

God’s love does not require words, just presence! Sitting in silence with him in my heart is the best song I will ever hear!

When did you first hear God’s love song for you? What was it like?

Take away: Are you speaking God’s love language? I challenge you to look into God’s eyes and hear is love in silence.

Today Cardinal Sarah relates the melody with incense ascending in silence. Incense makes no noise, but it is obviously present. I am one of those people who loves incense and the smell, to me is all about being at church. When you see the smoke of incense rising, I imagine my prayers being lifted to heaven into the hears and heart of God. As Cardinal Sarah says, “melody for the heart of God.”

This may be why when I pray, my habit is too lite a candle, most of the time it is scented because I want to smell something that brings be back to the presence of God, just like the incense.

I think the same can be said for prayers, this same melody can be used in prayer, think about the rhythm of the Our Father, or the Hail Mary, especially when praying the rosary. The sense of comfort that these prayers bring to a me when I am in adoration stays with me the rest of the day.

My sense of smell and hearing goes into overdrive and takes over your brain for the day.

Incense is used in many ways during mass. Deacon:

Incense was used in ancient times as the smoke of the incense was a sign of God’s constant guiding presence to the people.

Let the melody of God’s love bringing you closer to him and prayer in the silence of your heart.

I feel that this is a continuation for yesterday, yesterday we talked about letting God in. Today I hear Cardinal Sarah say that once we let God in, we then must collaborate with him.

Last week we talked about monologue and the one-way conversations we tend to want to have with God and others. I see collaboration as the opposite of monologue. Unless you work completely alone on a desert island, I would venture to guess that you at will have to collaborate with others.

When my kids were young, there was not much collaboration going on (no doubt they would agree), where I said what was going to be done and “most” of the time they did it. But now that they are adults the collaboration process had to change.

The same could be said about the collaboration we have with God in our hearts. We spend time with him, we listen to the prompting of the Holy Spirit. Collaboration takes understanding the other person, we must understand God, and understand him by getting to know him. I come to God in prayer asking him for help/advise when I am struggling with a particular situation. When I sit with God, we collaborate because we have the same common goal, for me to share in eternal happiness with him. If he was not concerned about me, he would not call me to prayer, to share is love with me.

Take away: Do you collaborate with God or do you have your own agenda and execute it without consulting with God in the silence of your heart, during prayer?

You come one with God when you strive to live your life for the love of God, without expectations. God does not disappoint as humans do.

We always have expectations from one another and are disappointed when those expectations are not met. However, when entering in a union with someone else there should be no expectations because it should be out of love that you enter into that union willing the good of the other expecting nothing in return.

With that, uniting ourselves with God in silence, bringing our brokenness to him in our heart, we experience love not disappointment.

Take away: Today Cardinal Sarah asks the question, “How do we let God enter into us?”, encourage you to reflect on that question, how do you let God in?

I am hearing Cardinal Sarah talk about the fact that if we do not let God penetrate our innermost regions of the soul for me this means my heart, then we can not her him and if we cannot hear him then he cannot get in to transform us.

Webster defines penetrate as “successful in forcing something in”.

God does not force himself into our hearts. He was there from the day he created us and lives in our hearts whether we acknowledge him or not.

As I reflect on what Cardinal Sarah was trying to say here, it reminded me of when I was trying to teach my children how to ride a bike. They were afraid of falling so they built a wall around their mind where the fear lived and no reassurance from me would dispel that fear. We practiced every day and every day the fear was being penetrated (even only a little bit) with confidence and skill, one day the wall was penetrated completely and fall to the ground.

The same can be said for our heart where God lives. Often, we have built a wall around our fear and the one who is trying to penetrate that wall is God.

It takes practice and perseverance to hear the voice of God in our hearts. He is trying to tell us that we are safe with him and if we fall and hurt ourselves, he will be there to pick us up and care for us.

Take away: Ask the listeners to examine their hearts for any walls that God is waiting patiently to penetrate. If there are any walls, ask God to help bring the walls down, because only through God’s help will the walls be penetrated.

Today is the last day of the Women’s Cursillo weekend. I ask that you pray for these women that they allow the love of God to penetrate their hearts, that he take residence in that heart and they take him with them when they leave today.