Sheltered under the last remnants of night before the city begins to stir, the sisters arise in silence to the sound of the convent bell. Its toll sings its own sort of praise to God: “Awake, o sleeper...and Christ will give you light" (Eph 5:14). With the bell comes our call for the work of God to begin anew again.

Silently shuffling past one another with a cup of coffee, the sisters prepare for prayers in the quiet hush of early morning. A peaceful silence reigns in the house. In the autumn and winter, the chapel’s stained-glass windows of the lives of St. Cecilia and St. Dominic remain dark as the community gathers for morning meditation. When the courtyard bell penetrates the silence at 5:30 a.m. to sound the ancient Angelus, all recite in one voice the words of the great mystery of divine humility in the Incarnation: “And she conceived of the Holy Spirit."

In our convents we observe silence in the mornings and then at night after Compline, as well as at meals and in various parts of the house. Although there are exceptions to this monastic practice on the Church’s solemnities and other important feast days, ordinarily when the sisters are home they spend much of their day in silent recollection. Although clearly they do not keep silence at school, it is a gift to re-enter the calm of the cloister after school hours. For it is in the silence of the cloister that our life of contemplation is fostered, and it is from this wellspring that all our apostolic efforts flow.

Silence in the convent is not simply the cessation of noise or words, but a sacred expanse for the Lord to fill with His Spirit. An essential part of the Christian spiritual life, silence creates an interior space for rest and receptivity to God. We do not seek silence for its own sake, but rather for what it allows­– intimate conversation and companionship with Our Lord. French Catholic writer Ernest Hello once said of monks, “Speech is a journey they make out of charity for others, but silence is their homeland.”¹ Although we are not monks but apostolic Dominican sisters, it is still the same for us. Silence is our homeland, and amid a frenetic culture we treasure the gift of this oasis to be with our Beloved.

  ¹ quoted by Sister Mary Jean Dorcy, O.P. in The Shepherd’s Tartan (1953)