Hence Augustine, in words full of spiritual wisdom, urges: Noli foras ire, in te ipsum redi, in interiore homine habitat Veritas ... Do not go wandering out of you, do not dissipate on the outside, but comes back to yourself, because it is in you, in your heart, living the truth, this is where God comes to live, as Jesus himself said: "If you love me, keep my word and my Father will love him and come to him and make our home with him"(Jn 14:23).

The teaching of the ancient Fathers, drawing a clear source of the Gospel, is unanimous in emphasizing the need to cultivate the interior life, to enter into deep communion with God and not be tossed here and there by every wind of doctrine (cf. Eph 4, 14).

Far from being a narcissistic attitude of self-absorption, this descent into the depths of the heart is the way through rugged valleys and arid deserts, opens in the infinite horizon of transcendence. St. Augustine says: Yes, if you go down on yourself, you are in a world full of turmoil and unrest, don’t stand up immediately, but still go down in your footsteps, where it is He who is Truth and Peace, you will transcend yourself and be introduced into the ocean of love, so you will not longer live for yourself but for God, by becoming a contributor to his plan of universal salvation.

The first step in the spiritual path is, therefore, as Jesus taught, enter into the "inner cell" to find God in the secret heart (cf. Mt 6:6). But - as Dag Hammarskjöld said - "the inner journey is the longest journey" and very difficult, being threatened on the outside and inside, by others and ourselves, it is necessary to equip properly to carry out.

First, we have to dress with silence to defend ourselves from so many noises that distract us from hearing the Holy Spirit that prays in us and makes us humble and obedient.

The Prologue of the Rule of St. Benedict begins with the biblical admonition: "Listen, son ..." (V. 1). The Father of Western monasticism, ordered as a prerequisite for an authentic Christian life, the attitude of listening and reception is possible only to those who are silent. We are facing a fundamental requirement for all Christians, but essential for those who want to live a life totally consecrated to the Lord.

We live in an age of maximum communication, now it is believed that the person may be made only if communicates in the "global village": all the world has already arrived to your fingertips in seconds, virtually. This need for communication is undoubtedly good, but if it becomes totalizing / absolute to the point of losing the dimension of inner silence and then serious damage comes to the person, which disperses and breaks in exteriority. The word almost inevitably ends in a chat with a frantic search for the sensational, even at the expense of the truth that remains hidden.

In this sense, the religious life offers an example among people who have lost the Christian meaning of life. Those who have chosen to follow Jesus more closely should be even more involved in the preservation of genuine human values, so that, living in a society often are denied, must have the courage to go against and they don’t choose the easiest way of injustice and superficiality. This involves the daily martyrdom of conscience.

When the worldly man, in his pride, always speaks of himself and can’t be silent because he doesn’t want to put anyone before him, the disciples of Jesus are still shedding the desire for self-assertion and become the center of interest, to be open to listen to God and neighbor. Only the path of humility, self-forgetfulness, send him to the promised land of silence where the heart is sinking in the adoration of the mystery of God and is able to recognize in the faces of the brothers and sisters, the poor, those who suffer in the face of every man, though marred by poverty.

This journey of liberation from the tyranny of "self", for that matter, is the same path of conversion to what we are called every day. It is not so much to make efforts to become humble and silent, but rather to humbly ask the Lord to be present in our lives to bring us to worship reverently and to awaken in our mind's attention to Him and in Him, in each person and each event. The true silence, which is full of humility and love, is therefore a gift of grace and grown with the help of grace. The true knowledge of God doesn’t come with the intelligence - due to the reasoning and thinking - but with the heart, through the intuition of love that he gives us.

To enter into communion with God, we open the ear of the heart. Precisely for this our fathers in the faith were all "in love" with the Word. Of this word - that is Jesus Christ himself - the psalmist sings with passionate accents its excellent qualities: the word is true, faithful, stable, irrevocable, wonderful, is a shield for protection, food, sweetness, is the source of life, light , joy, comfort, peace and eternal joy.

God addresses the word! Blessed is who knows how to listen and appreciate in his heart to donate it to grow and bear fruit for eternal life.

All are called to live this beatitude that, already, was experienced by our ancestors of the first covenant, and now culminates in the hearing of the Word made flesh: "In many and various ways God spoke of in the past to our ancestors through the prophets, in these last days spoken unto us by a Son "(Heb 1.1).

For us believers, to listen is, therefore, to meet with love whom is here and he speaks with us because he wants to have a permanent home into us and to live in communion with him in the fullest sense, as a Eucharistic people.

The Virgin Mary gives us an unsurpassable model.

The, in fact, is the Virgin of silence and listening, who received the Word of God, conceived and gave birth ... Silence and humility were in Mary's root and stem that flourished in the listening / obedience, and then the Word of Life, Jesus. Looking at it, we can learn to listen obediently, the humble and prayerful silence. At her school, we become true disciples of Jesus, the Word of God. Jesus himself proclaimed: "He raised his voice a woman in the crowd and said: "Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that you sucked! ". But he said: "Blessed are those who hear the Word of God and keep it "(Lk 11:27-28). On another occasion, Jesus went on to say that his mother and brothers are those who hear the word of God and put into practice (cf. Lk 8:21, Mk 3.31 to 35).

No doubt, therefore, that the Word is the daily bread, the basic element of training to spiritual life and communion with God. Every Christian can obtain this bread to grow internally. As the Apostle says, we must remain in the Word, breathe on it, based on it. And his effectiveness is safer and stronger when this Word becomes a sacred event in the liturgy. Celebrating the mystery of Christ, our life is involved in such a way that will become the place of his living and his saving action. Transformed in Him, we too become sacred text, word of life for our brothers, even in silence, simply because we are living icons.

This tour of the inner life is not just, as I said, exhausting because of our human frailty, but is also full of traps. There is always the risk of illusion and ambiguity, by the wicked sower, who works in secret to hinder our listening to the Lord and he suggests in us his speeches cunning. Then the confusion may arise between the Word of God with its true meaning and our subjective interpretation suggested by the perverse logic of evil.

For our hearing does not suffer damage from the interference of the liar, you must be alert and pray that the word itself becomes a prayer in our hearts and that the humble and confident prayer may be as our own breath. Then the mystical union with Him will realize, with Him who is our life and we can say with the Apostle, "is not I who live, but Christ lives in me" (cf. Gal 2.20; Phil1: 21; Col 2:17).