If our lives are in turmoil we may feel that there is no way to quieten the din in our mind. But we are wrong. Even though the surface of our lives may be deeply disturbed, there is always a place deep within where there is calm.

Getting in touch with that deeper place takes time. But that is all it takes. A time to be still, to be quiet until the turmoil within begins to ease. If we allow him, Jesus is as willing to quieten the storms in our lives as he was willing to quell the tempest on the Lake of Galilee when his friends battled with an angry sea.

Jesus and his disciples were in a boat, Matthew tells us, when suddenly a storm broke over the lake, so violent that the boat was being swamped by the waves. Jesus was asleep. ‘So they went to him and woke him saying, “Save us, Lord, we are lost!” And he said to them, “Why are you so frightened, you who have so little faith?” And then he stood up and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm’ (Matthew 8:24–27).

Augustine has this advice for those who feel they are being swamped by the storms of life:

For Christians who fear they are 

drowning in the world’s business 

the worst thing they can do is panic. 

There can be no question of escape 

from the situation;

We are many miles from land 

and there is no help near.

The one thing we can do 

is to withdraw, as it were, 

into ourselves,

to find the Christ within, 

who is as powerful

to still the inner tempest

as He was to subdue the waves 

on the Lake of Galilee.

Our prayer of silence takes us down to that stillness at the centre of our being, to that innermost self where there is always peace. When we become more quiet we find the peace that is hidden in the depths of our being, but is submerged under the agitation of everyday life.

So, in the words of a beautiful prayer, ‘I weave a silence around my lips, my mind, my heart.’ The prayer continues with this appeal: ‘Calm me, Lord, as you stilled the storm. Still me, Lord, and keep me from harm. Let all the tumult within me cease. Enfold me, Lord, in your peace.’

It is a long way from the surface of our lives, a long road from the troubled mind to the place of peace in the centre of our being. ‘The longest road,’ wrote Dag Hammarskjöld, ‘is the journey inward. Between you and him lie care, uncertainty, doubt.’

To reach the place where Christ awaits us we need to be prepared for long periods of silence and quiet, long enough for our doubts to dissolve, our cares to lose their urgent pressures, our uncertainty to give way to trust. To wait in silence for as long as it takes is to be taken eventually to the still centre where we find that the mind has become quiet and the heart is at peace. And, in the stillness, we find God.

An extract from Finding Your Hidden Treasure

© 2010 Benignus O’Rourke OSA

Published by Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd

© Photo: Ian Wilson OSA

Get the book: www.theaugustinians.org