"True silence is the speech of lovers...

Yaddo Gardens in Saratoga Springs, NY

...For only love knows its beauty, completeness, and utter joy.  True silence is a garden enclosed, where alone the soul can meet its God.  It is a sealed fountain that she alone can unseal to slacken the soul's infinite thirst for Him.

True silence is a key to the immense and flaming heart of God.  It is the beginning of a divine courtship that will end only in the immense, creative, fruitful, loving silence of final union with the Beloved.

Yes, such silence is holy, a prayer beyond all prayers.  True silence leads to the final prayer of the constant presence of God, to the heights of contemplation, when the soul, finally at peace, lives by the will of Him whom she loves totally, utterly, and completely."

(Taken from 'Poustinia' by Catherine Doherty)