18 Quotes by Robert Sarah

Contemplation leads us toward the divine in an irreversible movement. The man who contemplates and encounters his Creator will never be the same again: he may fall a hundred times, sin a hundred times, deny God a hundred times, but a part of his soul has already arrived in heaven definitively.

For someone who is far from God, silence is a difficult confrontation with his own self and with the rather dismal realities that are at the bottom of our soul. Hence, man enters a mentality that resembles a denial of reality. He gets drunk on all sorts of noises so as to forget who he is. Postmodern man seeks to anesthetize his own atheism.

After the recent canonization of Pope Saint Paul VI, would it not be appropriate to meditate upon the example of that prophetic pope? In publishing the encyclical Humanæ Vitæ, on the one hand, and Credo of the People of God on the other, Paul VI gave us the example of a prophetic government, contrary to currents and pressures.

Words often bring with them the illusion of transparency, as though they allowed us to understand everything, control everything, put everything in order. Modernity is talkative because it is proud, unless the converse is true. Is our incessant talking perhaps what makes us proud?

Some priests unfaithful to the "memory" of Jesus insist more on the festive aspect and the fraternal dimension of the Mass than on the bloody sacrifice of Christ on the Cross. The importance of interior dispositions and the necessity of reconciling ourselves with God by agreeing to let ourselves be purified by the sacrament of confession are no longer in fashion today.

Without radical humility that is expressed in gestures of adoration and in sacred rituals, no friendship with God is possible. Silence manifests this connection in an obvious way. True Christian silence makes itself sacred silence first so as to become silence of communion.

The devil invites mankind to rebellion and disorder. With his litany of subterfuges, he sows discord and incites us to pour out our hatred upon each other. "Old Scratch" always makes noise and a lot of racket so as to prevent us from resting in God. The devil will not be able to reach us in the stronghold of silence. Let us guard against multiplying sins by satisfying our little egotistical or revolutionary passions.

Our world no longer hears God because it is constantly speaking, at a devastating speed and volume, in order to say nothing.

Why are men so noisy during the liturgies while Christ's prayer was silent? The words of the Son of God come from the heart, and the heart is silent. Why do we not know how to speak with a silent heart? The heart of Jesus does not speak. It radiates with love because its language comes from the divine depths.