In a world saturated with noise, screens and relentless demands, the very idea of silence can feel foreign, especially for men carrying the weight of work, family and constant responsibility. Yet silence, far from being a luxury, may be exactly what the soul needs most.
On Saturday, 21 March, men are invited to step away from the everyday and enter into “Finding Silence with St Joseph: Men’s Lenten Retreat”, a day-long silent retreat at St Joseph’s Catholic Church, Moorebank.
“We live in a world that doesn’t give us much silence,” says organiser Michael Jaksic, from Maximus Men’s Ministry within the Life, Marriage and Family Team. “Silence is not a luxury or an optional extra for the spiritual life, it’s something essential. Silence is God’s original language.”
Jaksic speaks from experience, having spent close to 100 days on silent retreats over the years. Drawing on Pope Benedict XVI’s teaching, he reflects: “Without silence, words with rich meaning cannot exist. It is in silence that the heart finally has room to receive anything that truly matters.”
He points to the prophet Elijah, who encountered God not in the earthquake or the fire, but in a still, small voice. Silence, Michael says, is the ordinary place where God chooses to meet us.
The retreat centres on the prayer life of St Joseph, a man whose silence was not passive, but profoundly attentive.
“In the Gospels, Joseph never speaks,” Michael notes, “yet his listening and obedience shaped the Holy Family’s very survival.” So attuned was Joseph to God that he received divine direction even in sleep, guided through dreams to take Mary as his wife, to flee into Egypt, and later to return home.
“St Joseph, as a layman, probably has the most to offer us in terms of how we can learn to imitate that silence and the disposition toward mental prayer, more than any other saint.”
By prayerfully reflecting on St Joseph, the retreat aims to help men deepen their sense of masculine identity, as leaders, providers and protectors and to reconnect with their vocation as Joseph did: in stillness, listening for God’s will.
The retreat will be led by Fr Johnson Joseph CRS and will unfold in an atmosphere of recollection, prayer, and near-continuous silence. The day includes Holy Mass to open the retreat, a series of retreat talks, extended periods of adoration and silent prayer and opportunities for spiritual direction and confession
For men worried they simply “can’t do” a day of silence, Michael offers liberating counsel, the same advice he received at the start of a 30-day Ignatian retreat: “Relax your way into prayer. Prayer is more God’s work than it is your work.”
Far from being oppressive, real silence is liberating. It may feel loud at first, cluttered with distraction, but in time, it becomes loud with something else entirely: the voice of God, speaking with a new clarity.
“It’s in that space of silence, in that space of reflection, that men learn to be the leaders, the providers and the protectors they are called to be,” Michael says. “So embrace the silence. Don’t be afraid. You’re expanding your capacity to pray. The silence speaks.“
To register go to: trybooking.com/DHKRV
