The Emptying Silence

In centering prayer, there comes a moment when every thought, every ambition, every carefully constructed image of ourselves dissolves into silence. Thomas Merton called this the discovery of our "true self" — the self hidden with Christ in God, stripped of pretension. It is precisely what Paul describes in Philippians 2:3-4: "Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others."

A Trappist monk once described his first year in the monastery as a slow unraveling. He had arrived with a doctorate, a published book, and quiet certainty that he would become the community's great teacher. But the silence did its work. In the refectory, he peeled potatoes beside a brother who could barely read — and found himself undone by the man's radiance at prayer. "I came here full of myself," he said. "The silence emptied me out so God had somewhere to dwell."

This is the kenosis Paul points toward — the self-emptying that mirrors Christ's own descent. Teresa of Avila understood this well. In the inner rooms of her Interior Castle, she found that the soul draws closer to God not by climbing but by kneeling, not by accumulating spiritual achievements but by releasing them.

Humility is not thinking less of yourself. It is thinking of yourself less — until the sacred silence fills what remains. Begin there. Sit. Be still. Let God do the emptying.