The Great Silence

The period of solitude beginning of the Great Silence (in speech and action), which continues until the end of Morning Prayer the next day.

Each day begins typically for dawn prayers. There’s Mass, breakfast, a few hours of work—gardening, cooking, cleaning, and making altar breads. Then Prayers before lunch, siesta, three more sets of prayers, and then, from approximately 8-9 pm, “the Great Silence”.

Right from the beginning, as per the early rule by St Albert of Jerusalem, a Carmelite remained in separate cells or huts and observed vows of silence, seclusion and abstinence. Though Carmelites need not observe silence as strictly at other times, St. Albert advised them not to indulge “in a great deal of talk.”

An atmosphere of silence and solitude is essential to our life of prayer. In solitude, we learn to surrender to the work of God.

It was this silence that was one of the main things about Carmel that attracted st Elizabeth of the Trinity so much. “The life of a Carmelite is silence,” she writes, “so she loves that above all!

Silence is maintained throughout the day with the exception of two periods of recreation.

The great silence is called by our holy Fathers the holy and sacred silence. All the Religious Orders have consecrated it to the communion of the soul with God.