via zoom: Carmelite Conversations, with Paul Sireh OCarm on Silence as Language of Prayer, Wednesday 4 October, 10.30am to 12.00pm

In this session we will reflect on Silence as Prayer being an invitation to seek God by fine-tuning our minds, our hearts, our senses to be aware of God’s presence, to listen to God’s whisper in every moment and in every situation.

Silence goes with Solitude, another main discipline of abstinence, but it can also be practiced in relationship with others by;

1. Listening to People: 2. Community Silence: 3.Contemplative Prayer Following the theme of silence by Paul’s favourite guru, the late Fr Thomas Keating.

Thomas Keating, O.C.S.O. was an American Catholic monk and priest of the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance. Keating was known as one of the principal developers of Centering Prayer, a contemporary method of contemplative prayer that emerged from St. Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts.

“The Secret Embrace is that silence is not absence, but presence. It is a “something,” not a nothing. It has substantiality, heft, force. You can lean into it, and it leans back. It meets you; it holds you up.”

About the present: I come from the beautiful Manus Island, north of Papua New Guinea.   I left home when I was 18 years old. I am the eighth born of nine siblings. Now a citizen to Australia. This year I celebrate my 18th year as an ordained priest and 23 years as a Carmelite friar. This year, too, will be my sixth year as a full-time college chaplain at Whitefriars College. A great privileged ministering to the college which gave me joy and learning to experience a new ministry, coming into a big community of students and teachers who shared the same Catholic and Carmelite ethos and living the Carmelite charism. I enjoyed very much being involved in the various liturgies and college events and presentations. It is a peaceful environment. Now as the full-time chaplain with the Religious Education team, I feel I am putting my gift of the liturgy which I am very good at, into practice and gaining new experiences.