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Between Jesus and certain souls there exists a love so great that the soul always lives in the presence of the Beloved.  Such a soul will not allow anything created to interfere with this, and that is why this soul seeks solitude.

Not observing the imperfections of others, preserving silence and a continual communion with God will eradicate great imperfections from the soul and make it the possessor of great virtues.

‘Hear, O daughter, consider and incline your ear, forget your people and your father’s house, and the king will desire your beauty’. It seems that this appeal is an invitation to silence; ‘listen ... incline your ear ...’. But to hear, one must forget the house of one’s father, that is, all that binds one to the natural life, that life which was spoken of by the apostle when he said, ‘…if you live according to the flesh you will die’ (Rom. 8:13).

Silence is precious; by keeping silence and knowing how to listen to God, the soul grows in wisdom and God teaches it what it cannot learn from men.

Sometimes the need to be silent makes itself so strongly felt that one would wish not to know how to do anything else save remain at the Master’s feet with Magdalen, eager to hear everything, to penetrate ever more deeply into the mystery of love which He came to reveal to us.

The more you feel your weakness, your difficulty in being recollected, the more the Master seems to hide Himself, the more you should rejoice, for then you are giving Him something, and is it not better to give than to receive, when one loves?

Jesus is a hidden treasure which few souls can find, for it is hidden and the world loves what sparkles.

When a soul is happy, living in close union with God, so as to make its life an intimate friendship with the Divine Master, when it knows how to find Him in its inmost depths, then it is never lonely again, and it feels the need of solitude in order to enjoy the Presence of the Guest it adores. You must give Him His rightful place in your heart, which He has made capable of loving so passionately; if you realized how good He is, how He is all love!

As the soul abode in solitude, abandoning all created help and consolation in order to obtain fellowship and union with the Beloved, it deserved thereby the peace of solitude in the Beloved, in whom it reposes alone, undisturbed by any anxiety.

Saint Catherine of Siena loved to say in the silence of her soul: "I am sought, I am loved."  That is what is true.

If you want to find a hidden treasure you must enter the hiding place secretly, and once you have discovered it, you will also be hidden just as the treasure is hidden. Since, then, your beloved Bridegroom is the treasure hidden in a field for which the wise merchant sold all his possessions [Mt. 13:44], and that field is your soul, in order to find him you should forget all your possessions and all creatures and hide in the secret inner room of your spirit and there, closing the door behind you (your will to all things), you should pray to your Father in secret [Mt. 6:6]. Remaining hidden with him, you will experience him in hiding, that is, in a way transcending all language and feeling.

That which is truly great grows unnoticed, and silence at the right moment is more fruitful than the constant activity that only too easily degenerates into spiritual idleness. In the present age, we are all possessed by a strange restlessness that suspects any silence of being a waste of time and any kind of repose as being negligence. We forget the real mystery of time, the real mystery present in growth and activity. That mystery involves silence and stillness. Even in the religious sphere we tend to expect and hope for everything from our own activity. We use all kinds of exercises and involvements to evade the real mystery of interior growth before God.