![](http://elisabeth-dijon.org/images/celebrer_reliquaire.jpg)
This reliquary contains the remains of Bd. Elizabeth of the Trinity. They are kept within the wall of the Lady Chapel in Église St-Michel, in the heart of Dijon, France. I have knelt here many a time.
Zelo zelatus sum pro Domino Deo exercituum
Notre Dame, our Mother
Tender, strong and true
Proudly in the heavens,
Gleams thy gold and blue.
Glory's mantle cloaks thee
Golden is thy fame,
And our hearts forever,
Praise thee, Notre Dame.
And our hearts forever,
Love thee, Notre Dame.
In the verses above, John of the Cross speaks – seemingly in contradiction – of a solitude that is full of echoes, of a music that cannot be heard. Silence is itself a contradiction. It is at once absence and presence; the path to a place, and the place itself. It is the absence of noise, but it is never empty. The strange fullness of silence alarms us, and it is because its fullness is at times so unbearable that we fill it with noise instead.
My Beloved, the mountains, the solitary wooded valleys,--St John of the Cross
The strange islands, the sonorous rivers,
The whisper of the amorous breezes.
The tranquil night, at the time of the rising of the dawn,
The silent music, the sounding solitude, the supper that recreates and enkindles love.
The eternal silence of these infinite spaces fills me with dread,said Pascal. Yet it is in silence that we hear the things that really matter. Deep silence allows us to listen to our own heart, the place where God speaks to us, the place where God dwells.