I begin with a confession: I meant to title this analogy noisy neighborhood or noisy neighbours, or something like that but just discovered we are looking forward to living in a quiet homey neighborhood.
Well, we all ( you and I) have experienced noisy neighborhoods, that one time when we were living opposite a club or just along the railway, or the airport or in extreme cases, a saw mill. The noise must have been so irritating that you either moved out or are planning to move out, or are hoping to move out some day.
It happens that the neighborhood our souls live in are so noisy that focusing on the one the soul needs to know to love to serve becomes an entire search. An attempt to pray is compromised by the memories and noises that the world today has.
Over the years, the doctors of the church, the popes and the saints have recommended silence to speak to God. In the wilderness, God spoke to the prophet in the gentle wind. God continues to speak to us today, but the noisy neighborhood will not allow us to hear his voice. We have to leave the noisy neighborhood. We however have to remain in the world. We have to observe holy silence through the arduous mortification of our senses of sight and hearing. We have to mortify our curiosity to only desire the one true God, to whom all knowledge belongs.
Our role model, Mary, Our mother, contemplated “these things and pondered them in her heart.” She lived in the presence of God all her life. She surely will help her overwhelmed children in this wave in which we dread to drown. through her intercession, you and I will overcome ourselves and become real ‘contemplatives in the middle of the world.’ (St. Josemaria.)