Silence and the Presence of God

Real prayer comes from faith: faith in the reality of God, "in whom we live and move and have our being." We can make an act of faith in God, saying we believe He is present. We need to do this very often.
John of the Cross said in one letter "You owe it to your heart to give it this peace and stillness, since your heart is a place where the Spirit is pleased to dwell."
He also writes of "the Spirit’s constant presence." Now it seems to me that God desires our company more than we desire the constant company of God, because God never takes his love and attention from us. Think of Jesus saying "Abide in me as I abide in you." All of us enjoy loving relationships with other humans. And all of us actually have a loving relationship with God.
What matters then is that we give more attention to this reality. We do this in many ways. One important way is to develop the habit of a walking prayer. Saying a short prayer as we go about our day hither and yon. Another is to try our best to pray the Liturgy, really say those prayers those words we are all saying to God. And then as John of the Cross says. Provide your lives with stillness. In Liturgy at St. Augustine, there is also stillness times when it is good to pray, not just ogle the crowd…
We provide ourselves with stillness in Christian Meditation or Centering Prayer. We use a prayer word or phrase because that keeps us attentive and keeps us from just being '‘spacey'. Or filled with restless thinking. We want to be mindful that we are with God in the stillness no matter how we are feeling. Whether we feel nothing or are up or are down, we cling to the fact that God is with us sustaining us in life, loving us and calling us to walk in faith.
We walk by faith. Faith in the constant presence of the Holy Spirit, faith in the love that God has proved to us by the life and death and resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Like the children’s song, we need to say O God I believe in your dear love for me.