SILENCE
OF MARY
Mary,
Queen of the Heavens
Montréal
Robert
Trabold
Simple chapel,
simple church
silence of the chapel
touches me.
Mary does not say
anything. Lets
us know she is
there – silent – listening.
I came a long way to
make this trip – pilgrimage.
Ride – long – tiring
I made it.
I want to thank Mary
for being here. She knows
all my problems
problems of the world.
Silence is here
language of God.
Mary learned it
covers me with it.
I sit in the chapel
a pilgrim who travelled
long distance to touch
the Divine – the Beloved.
Mary assures me
trip was not in vain.
Jesus – Mary are
listening – touch me with
silence.
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PILGRIMAGE AND
MEDITATION
Robert Trabold
During the last month of September, I had the
opportunity to make a two week pilgrimage to Québec, Canada and I visited beautiful
shrines on the shores of the St. Lawrence River. I made this pilgrimage by myself and
considered it a trip of silence and meditation.
I did not go in a group so that I would have much time to make such a
contemplative trip. I first went to Québec City where I visited the shrine of
St. Mary of the Incarnation. She lived there in the early years of the French colony
and was a great mystic. She had a deep
experience of the presence of God at her center and still point and wrote
beautifully about this in her letters. She is called the Theresa of Avila of
North America. I then went to the beautiful basilica of St. Ann of Beaupré on
the outskirts of the city and situated on the shores of the St. Lawrence River.
It is a famous pilgrimage church in Québec and many pilgrims go there
especially for physical healings. I then drove to Trois Rivières and visited
the shrine of Our Lady of the Cape. It is also a beautiful church situated on
the banks of the St. Lawrence River and commemorates the apparition of the
Virgin to the people there in the 19th century. I continued on to
the city of Montréal and visited three places. I went to the shrine of St.
Brother André who lived in the 20th century and had a profound
influence on the people of that city due to his sanctity and healings.The
latter continue to this day. I also visited the shrine of Saint Padre Pio and
the church of Our Lady, Queen of the Heavens.
During these two weeks of visiting
these churches, I was in silence and meditating. I knew few people in Canada so
I could focus on the visit to these holy places. The beauty of the shrines and
they being dedicated to very holy people reinforced the sense of silence in my
prayer. I was in a special place and made great efforts to drive long distances
to visit there. This added to the experience of meditation and silence. There was an encounter with Jesus and the
saints which I felt very intensely. This immersion in silence and meditation
for two weeks can make us feel a bit uncomfortable. In our modern life in the
big cities, we are not accustomed to much quiet since noise is all around us
with many people, television, our activities, cell phones, etc. Silence seems
to be out of place and a mysterious thing. But being immersed in silence and
meditation for two weeks highlighted the meaning of contemplative prayer. This quiet is not really empty but is the
place of a deep encounter with the divine, the Lord, Our Beloved. We meet
someone and out of the nothingness of silence, we have an encounter of love
with the ground of our being and around whom we rotate our whole life. Our life
has a meaning and depth that no one else can give to us. We no longer have a
feeling of the emptiness of life but have it filled with a personal reality who
wants us to love in return.
Coming home then to New York City
where I live, I feel that I had a deep contemplative experience enriched by the
visit to beautiful shrines and basilicas in a lovely part of the world, Québec
and on the shores of the St. Lawrence River. Hopefully this rich experience of
prayer and silence will help me be faithful to the practice of contemplation
twice a day, each time for 20 minutes. It will help me be preserving in the
contemplative path when there are times of dryness and distraction. I can look
a back to the deep experience of prayer in this pilgrimage encouraging me to
continue on and not give up.
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