Mary, Virgin of the silence in which the Father eternally utters His Word
The Father spoke one Word, which was His Son, and this Word speaks always in eternal silence, and in silence must it be heard by the soul (Sayings of Light and Love, 100)
Most Holy Virgin of Mount Carmel, Virgin of the great silence, more eloquent than all the words of the earth; serene dawn in which the Father began to reveal to us the mystery hidden from the ages; living tabernacle in which the Word took our mortal flesh by the work of the Holy Spirit; enclosed garden, sealed fountain, pleasant orchard where the Beloved found His delights among the children of men: receive me today beneath your mantle and teach me to enter with you into that interior region where all is silent because God alone suffices, where the heart learns to listen before speaking, to love before understanding, and to adore before questioning.
You kept all the words of your Son, meditating on them in your heart. You did not retain them as one preserves a memory, but allowed the Holy Spirit to transform them into life. Obtain for me that same grace, so that the Gospel may not resound only on my lips, but may descend to the deepest part of my soul, there where the Father continues to utter His Word eternally and where the uncreated Love desires to make of every baptized person a dwelling of the Most Holy Trinity.
How much noise I still carry within me! How many whistles that are not that of the Good Shepherd! How many desires that scatter the heart and prevent it from running after the footsteps of the Beloved! You, Lady of Carmel, lead me to the sonorous solitude where Friar John of the Cross learned that silence is not absence, but presence; not sterility, but fruitfulness; not empty darkness, but night full of stars, because in the shadows shines the hidden light of faith. Teach me to love that blessed night in which God extinguishes the deceptive lights of the senses to kindle in the center of the soul the living flame of His Spirit.
Do not allow me to seek consolations more than the Consoler; nor gifts more than the Giver; nor spiritual sweetnesses more than the Spouse who grants them. If at any time the Beloved seems to hide His face, make me not cease to seek Him; if He is silent, teach me to wait; if He wounds my heart with the dart of His absence, make that wound enlarge my desire for Him. For I know that love is not measured by what is felt, but by what remains; not by the abundance of lights, but by the fidelity with which the soul continues to walk when everything seems covered by night.
Sweetest Mother, make of my heart a small cell of Carmel, where recollection is breath, prayer is rest, the Word is food, and adoration the sweetest occupation of each day. May I learn to live hidden with Christ in God; may the world diminish so that the Kingdom may grow in me; may my works speak less of me and more of Jesus Christ; may my poverty leave space for the riches of the Father; may my weakness become the place where the Holy Spirit manifests the power of His grace.
And when that hour comes in which my soul must cross the final night to enter the light that knows no setting, remain at my side as you remained beside the Cross of your Son. Then, when all the voices of the earth are silenced, make me hear the one Word that does not pass away; when all shadows disappear, lead me to the living Fountain that flows eternally in the heart of God; when the exile ends, bring me into the inner wine cellar of the Kingdom, so that, transformed into the Beloved by the action of the Holy Spirit, I may contemplate without veils the face of Jesus Christ and, with Him and in Him, praise forever the Father, who will be all in all.
Our Lady of Mount Carmel, teach me the holy silence in which the Father eternally utters His Word and the Holy Spirit transforms the soul into Christ. Amen.
By: Msgr. Alberto José González Chaves