What if the key to a deeper relationship with God wasn't in doing more, but in being more silent? In this season finale, we explore how the Blessed Virgin Mary's profound silence allowed her to hear the voice of an angel and how her example can teach us to hear God in our own lives, especially during seasons like Lent.

What does it mean to be so silent you can hear the voice of an angel? In this season finale, we explore the Blessed Mother as our ultimate model for a fruitful interior life. Discover how Mary’s profound silence, from the Annunciation to the Cross, teaches us how to prepare our hearts to receive God, allowing the fruit of our lives to be Christ himself.

This episode delves into the life of Mary as the perfect model of Christian virtue and prayer. We explore how her silence wasn't empty, but a fertile ground that bore the greatest fruit: Christ himself. By examining key moments, such as the Annunciation and her quiet strength at the foot of the Cross, we uncover practical lessons for our own spiritual journey, learning how to cultivate an interior silence that allows us to bear Christ-like fruit in our daily lives.

In this episode, you will learn:

  • Why Mary's silence at the Annunciation is the perfect model for making our own souls "fertile" for God's will.
  • How to recognize the "small fruits" of silence in your life and why small acts done with great love are more powerful than grand gestures.
  • How Mary’s powerful, silent presence at the Cross provides a virtuous alternative to our modern impulse to react with noise and anger.
  • Why silence is the essential, non-negotiable key to hearing God and avoiding confusion on your spiritual path.

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TRANSCRIPT

(NOTE: This transcription has been automatically generated through an AI program. Consequently, this transcript may not match everything you hear in the podcast episode, and it may contain errors such as spelling, grammar, word choice, etc., due to the limitations of current AI technology.)

The Model of Silence: Mary and Christ

Hey everyone, so welcome to the final episode of Midnight Carmelite for this season, a meditation on silence. I kind of wanted to end by talking about who our model for silence is. You could say Christ, right? He prayed in the wilderness. But I think it would be helpful to just focus on our blessed mother. If you consider the Annunciation, for example, it was said about her that she was so silent, she could hear the voice of an angel. Now you think about that phrase and you're like, wow, angels don't have voices. What does that mean? I think this is the whole point of silence: it will allow you to have good fruits in your lives because you'll spend more fruitful time with God. And I think Mary's that model. So consider the Annunciation. The angel Gabriel comes, tells her that she's going to be the mother of the Savior, mother of God, and Mary simply says yes. She said, may it come to pass. And what happens? What's the fruit? The fruit of her womb, Jesus. We say it in the Hail Mary all the time. So I think then we can take that and say, if the fruit of Mary's womb is Jesus and we're all called to be Christians and the Holy Spirit is supposed to make us more like Christ, then the fruit of our efforts at silence is to make the soil fertile, make it ready to receive God such that we can be more like Christ. Mary shows us the way there. She shows us how to pray, she shows us as a model of virtue and humility, how being immaculately conceived and without sin, she existed as a Christian, meaning a follower of her son and filled with God, not simply a Christian by saying words and not living it. She existed as such at the highest level possible for someone who's not both God and man, and I think that's important here. In other words, it's possible for us. It's possible for Christ who's both God and man, so he had a full human nature, but she did it too. So you have two examples. It's not just a one-off fluke, not that God himself is, but you know what I mean? It's something for us to consider.

The Fruits of Silence in Our Lives

She showed us how to follow Christ because she followed Christ perfectly, and I think that's the example I'm trying to get at here. So my point is, how this Lent are we going to be as silent as Mary? For myself, I got rid of a lot of news, got that out of my life. The other thing to remember is that Mary was living her vocation perfectly. Again, if you see the fruits in your life are Christ-like—in her case it was literally Christ—but if you see the fruits in your life as Christ-like, then you're going to have more interior silence, because there won't be your competing desires versus God's will for you. You're going to see examples in your life where you were a light to others. You're going to see examples in your life where you've shown love to others. And here's the thing: it's not going to be something big, at least in my experience of this. We always think big today. As I was saying in the previous podcast, I thought too big. We need to think small. Think about it: God came as a small baby. The metaphor in Luke's passage is fruit. Fruits aren't that big, and there are many of them, so there's a multiplicity and there are variations. So we have to think small, not because small is just easier, but because we have to do it with great love, which is going to make it big. In other words, you can have many large acts that are done with imperfect love or one small act done with perfect love. I'll take the small act done with perfect love any day; love is what we're going to be measured by. Love shows us how much we're like God.

Contrasting Mary: Virtue and Christian Living

To contrast with Mary here, I think it's effective to put a contrast to her. Here's a question: Did Mary ever take revenge on anybody? Did she ever act in a way that was for her own personal or private ends or desires, especially in relation to others and the injustices done to her? No. Think about this: At the cross, Mary sat there. She didn't form a committee. She didn't sign a petition. She didn't scream. She stood. She was there with him till the end—and it wasn't even the end, obviously, because he rose from the dead. She was there, and you can meditate on the body of Jesus being given and put into the arms of his mother. Mary shows us the way. Mary shows us how to be Christian through her virtue and being a follower of her son. Mary shows us what to do by contrasting what we think we should do, which turns out is what we should not do because it's not something that Mary would do. And I think that's really crucial here.

The Importance of Silence in Spiritual Growth

Finally, I just want to say something about summing up the season and silence and the passages and the exegesis. When you're trying to grow in the spiritual life, you're going to seek out others who will hopefully guide you. Maybe you have a spiritual director, whatever. And you have to remember that you're on a journey with God. If you don't have silence, you're going to get confused along the way because that's the way to hear God, like Mary was able to hear God. I can't emphasize how important this is. It's hard; I'm not saying it's easy, I'm just saying it's important. So anyway, I'll stop here. I hope you have an excellent Lent and an excellent Easter. I'll be back in a couple of months for the next season of Midnight Carmelite. I'll talk to you then, take care.