"In silence is our strength."

That was one of the many quotes i can remember having tacked (artfully, mind you) to my bedroom wall during my formative high school years. I'd scribble phrases like this onto pretty paper and make them look antiquish, and read them after my nightly rosary before snuggling into bed. Decoration and inspiration, right? Though i can no longer be certain where i read it first, i can be sure it was from the writings of some Church Father or less remarkable theologian. But i found it to be true way back in my youth, and i find it to be even more profound as i live my adult life as a Catholic woman in the 21st century.

The blessing of living on a small piece of land - and living on it in relative poverty - has been a recurring topic at family gatherings. When we lived in town, and now that we live in the country, I've always tried to preserve our home as a kind of cloister - a place set aside for the glorification of God in the day-to-day goings on of our little family. A place where it is relatively quiet.

Don't mistake my application of the term "quiet": We've got 3 small kids and all the noises that come with raising and loving and disciplining them. But it is quiet here.

Because we're rural, days can pass with the only the sounds being heard outside are those of birds chirping or roosters crowing or rain dripping or wind howling through the trees. That's a magificent experience in itself! More importantly, and whether we lived 10 feet or 10 miles from the nearest neighbors, the quiet of the indoors - the quiet of our domestic church, the tranquility and unpluggedness of our home from consumer culture and the Culture of Death - is an opportunity for freedom and purity and the strengthening of the soul.

Since we've deliberately unplugged ourselves from the culture in so many ways, and in turn rooted our family life in the Bridegroom and His Church, i'm inclined to simplify and purify my senses and am given so many opportunities to be in union with my children and husband and my Father throughout the day. When there's silence, one is much more easily able to be in prayer or to exist quietly and simply and with vigor and vitality while living out the vocation as wife and mother. This silence of the soul and of the home is what allows for a receptivity of and a response to the grace of Almighty God in our day-to-day lives. Spiritual strength to fight the war waged on marriage and the family (and a free society) is a fruit of that choice to be removed and silent.

"In silence is our strength." That phrase may have been written centuries ago, but, as it goes with Him Who is the Truth, it was valid then, and it's valid now.


(The picture is of a bench in our woods that overlooks a small cliff. We call this spot "Mossy Prospect" and i think it looks quasi-monastic. But that's just me.)