O ENCONTRO COM DEUS: UMA ABORDAGEM DA EXPERIÊNCIA DO SILÊNCIO NA TRADIÇÃO MONÁSTICA BENEDITINA

Abstract

This work aims to demonstrate the importance and value of silence in the Benedictine monastic tradition and how to seek to experience God through the tradition of Christian meditation throughout history and today. I used as theoretical reference the founder of the Benedictine Order Benedict of Nuria, known in the Roman Catholic tradition as St. Benedict, the English Benedictine monk Dom John Main, founder of the World Community for Christian Meditation and the also German Benedictine monk Anselm Grün who owns several works translated into Portuguese. In the first chapter the origin of primitive monasticism was presented and how it was lived by men and women who left everything they had, to live austere and simply, the search to experience divinity through work and prayer day by day. In a time when the difficulty was much greater and more complex than today. In the second chapter, the theme of silence will be continued, but now in the community life in which Benedict of Nuria believes that his monks can only experience God through ora et labora. And in the third and final chapter, the practice of silence will be addressed through the so-called “Christian Meditation”. An ancient practice that comes from the cloisters of the monasteries and reaches people as an alternative to try to experience the presence of the sacred and at the same time, making people seek self-knowledge. Roman Catholic Christians believe that one of the beauties that the Christian tradition has is the vision of unity. Due to the growing absence of God in modern conscience in the Roman Catholic view, there is a concern as to how humans can survive not with respect to race but with the humanity of race. In this case, it is believed that through this research, it will be possible to realize that the practice of meditation can allow access to such infinite richness of truth that lives within each human being according to Roman Catholics, and this experience of a reality shared and compassionate is what all wisdom teachings point to. The work has been done through bibliographical research, starting with the question of whether it really is possible through silence and the practice of Christian meditation, since it is not a novelty that Christianity is going through a turbulent transition period. that in the last thirty years there has been a revolutionary rediscovery as stated by Catholic scholars regarding the tradition of Christian contemplation. This is not merely an academic discovery, but it may be concluded that the practice of meditation has awakened a new awareness, that the contemplative dimension of prayer is open to every person regardless of their creed.