HEAD PREFECT KITABI SEMINARY,

K17 EMINENT CLASS, P.O.BOX 60, BUSHENYI.

Email: [email protected]
Contact: 0756108579/ 0779573395.

Re: ASSEMBLY NO. 14; HEAD PREFECT’S MESSAGE

SILENCE;
When we think of silence we most often think of something empty and dead. Today man is
surrounded by noise: not only audible noise, but sights, sounds, and information; and he
cannot imagine of a world without his phone, Internet, and TV. What would be the point of
silence?
To answer this question we have simply to look at what the Seminary is. It is a place of
formation; formation in the spiritual life as well as on the scholastic level. Its two-fold aim is to
impart to candidates for the priesthood the holiness and knowledge required by their vocation.
But he cannot receive these things unless he is properly disposed. That is, he cannot hear unless
he is listening, and only someone silent is truly listening.

The purpose of silence is not to despise sound and speech; it is to hear and receive what one is
being given. Silence is the basis of recollection and is indispensable for serious academic work. It
is also extremely helpful for keeping order in community life. This material silence, however, is
just a means to help keep a more fundamental, more important interior silence.

It is not external but internal silence that we call the principle of recollection and prayer. This is
the silence that one keeps by not allowing himself to be distracted and absorbed in the things
around him. This silence is what allows for interior reflection and is opposed to curiosity, which
does nothing but look for chances to abandon oneself to the world. Union with God in prayer or
in simple recollection is not possible without silence, nor will one be attentive to grace if he is
constantly distracted.

“Silence,” says Archbishop Lefebvre, “should be the very atmosphere of the seminary." He
encourages seminarians to keep it not only for their own benefit but also for the good of their
neighbour. He calls it “a great act of charity." When seen in its relation to the very object of the
seminary, this should be something obvious.

1 – Silence is creative:
With this sense creativity is a required quality in all fields. We need creative employees, creative
writers, creative teachers and more importantly creative students. Man is creative by nature;
however, we often destroy this quality by some unhealthy habits. For instance, doing a task,
homework or writing an essay while listening to music or television, surely will affect our
concentration and consequently will affect the quality of the work that we try to accomplish.

Yet creativity needs silence and quiet environment. A quiet environment allows the creative
person to develop his talent and to think deeper. Inspiration always comes in silent environment.
For instance, intellectuals, thinkers, poetry writers, inventors and creators in all fields always seek
absolute silence and quiet environment so that they could work comfortably and get inspiration.
Imagination also springs from silence. Silence and quiet are to an artist, an author or inventor etc,
what fertilizer is to crops. In conclusion, it can be said that “Silence and creativity are one” By
relating silence to creativity, he has insisted on the idea that silence is the wellspring of creativity.

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2 — Silence promotes the inner and builds trust:
When we are silent, we turn our thoughts and focus inwards and gain the power we need to refuel
our minds. Our ego is temporarily switched off or at least made to be quiet for a bit, and we start
to see the real world as it should be. Our thoughts get in the way of our reality sometimes and we
don’t see the beauty of the world around us. When there is silence there is time for introspection
and to allow your true-self to speak, not the ego, not the conscious mind but the true-self
connected to the flow of energy around us.

Through silence we could trust ourselves. Silence enables us to listen to our inner voice and to
detect our unique methods of thinking. It gives us a chance to understand our selves better.
Consequently, we improve and re-establish our relationships with our selves. We simply used to
think that others know better than we do. We have been taught this for most of our lives.
Listening silently to the promptings of our hearts we begin to know our own voices. We become
our own masters.

To put it more simply, we could say that silence helps us to find our values, understand our
strengths, identify our tendencies, acknowledge our limitations, set our goals and then establish
our direction.

3 — Silence gives rest:

The lack of silence in our modern life results in lack of comfort. In silence the body slows. The
rate of breathing slows. Our heart rate drops. We just forget about the past and future to live the
present moment. We enter our essential self. There is no need to go anywhere. There is no place
to go. This is our time for relaxation. This is our time for simply catching a breath and recharging
our batteries.

4 — Silence allows listening:

Silence gives us the opportunity to listen to others and more importantly to ourselves. When
others speak or during a conversation, silence could be used as sort of politeness and respect that
would make the communication successful

Yet the inner-silence also is very important. Since, it gives us a chance to listen to our inner
voices. It helps us to turn our thoughts and focus inwards and live the present moment now not
the past not the future. The inner-silence enables us to save our minds from the inane thoughts
and eliminate all mental noises. Thus we make our minds calmer. Consequently, we can work
and study more efficiently and our productivity will increase. The mental silence should be the
prime goal in our daily life. If we can be mentally calm we can solve many problems of life and
find ways to do difficult tasks.

Finally, we could say that by listening to others we will gain respect and by listening to ourselves,
we will not be afraid of the battles of life, because internally we will be very strong. By
developing the virtue of inner silence, we should be broad like sky (tolerate others’ thoughts) and
deep like ocean (where all life problems will be sunk).

The importance of silence for students

As we know, our education system encourages students to get ahead of their competition and to
get excellent marks so that they could conserve their chance to get a respectable job. Naturally
when we are competing each other we can never be at ease. We become bound to be stressed and
this pressure will keep on increasing with every passing day.

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Silence and meditation are the perfect tools to release this pressure and feel at ease with
ourselves. In fact today every seminarian- needs meditation more than ever. Connecting with
ones’ deeper self leaves him refreshed and regenerated so that he can move forward in life
without being exhausted or stressed.

As any other part of our bodies; our minds need rest too. We must just think what would happen
to our bodies if we keep on working for example for 16 hours or more per day and never get a
chance to take repose? Automatically we will be tired, exhausted and unable to master any kind
of work. Same is the case with our minds, they need break likewise. Therefore we could say that
silence and meditation are more essential to seminarians in particular as all their tasks demands
great mental efforts.

How could we improve our relationship with silence?

Firstly, we should change the negative mindset that we have in our minds about silence. In other
words, we have to learn about and extend our knowledge about the value of silence. We can do
that either through reading psychological books, asking the psychologists or searching in the
internet about the benefits of silence.

After changing your attitudes towards silence, you should try to change some of your habits. For
instance, when walking to school avoid using your MP3 player or any other such devices and try
to walk in silence. When you read a book or prepare for an exam, do it in silence. If you used to
read, write and prepare for exams while listening to music or watching television you should try
silence. You will find it much helpful. When you are alone in your residence, try to turn off all
noise sources for a specific period of time. Begin with fifteen minutes of total silence a day and
gradually increase the duration.

If you succeeded to change your habits and attitude towards silence then you should enlarge your
experience with silence by learning how to meditate. Attempt to schedule a ten minute for
meditation and contemplation period once or twice a day. Then extend your meditation time
gradually.

Mike Moore concluded by saying: “Soon you will begin to cherish the periods of silence you
have built into your day and long for more. You will quickly discover that you are becoming
more relaxed and less tense even in the midst of our noisy world. You will have made an
invaluable new friend of silence, a friend which can comfort, heal and soothe your spirit. What a
gift you will have given yourself”.

In conclusion, it can be said that if we followed Mike’ advices we would reconcile our
relationship with silence and certainly would discover the restorative power of silence that
students are in need of it.

Prepared by;

………………………………….
KIIZA EMMANUEL JUNIOR
HEAD PREFECT 2022-2023

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