Cedric Pisegna - Be Still and Know (01/21/2026)
Father Cedric draws from Luke 6 where Jesus spends the whole night in prayer before choosing the twelve apostles, emphasizing that true fruitfulness begins with abiding in God through stillness and silence rather than just speaking words. He teaches that prayer is communication involving listening, being quiet to hear God's voice, and that this intimate knowing of God is the foundational fruit Jesus spoke of when he said "Abide in me and you will bear much fruit." The conclusion is an invitation to embrace silence as God's language, persevere through dry times, and build a deeper relationship with God that leads to lasting fruit in life.
Welcome and the Scripture from Luke 6
Welcome to «Live with Passion». I’m Father Cedric Pisegna, the host of «Live with Passion». So glad that you joined us. So glad that you’ve tuned in. This series is about being fruitful, and I wanted to share with you from Luke chapter 6, «In these days, Jesus went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God. And when it was day, he called his disciples and chose from them 12 whom he named apostles».
Be Still and Know That I Am God
I have on my desk a plaque, and the plaque says, «Be still and know that I am God». And I love that because really when it comes to abiding in Jesus, and that’s what this is all about, remember what Jesus said. He said, «Abide in me and you will bear much fruit». When it comes to abiding in Jesus, yes, we can speak words, and that’s important and that’s a part of prayer, but abiding in Jesus has to do with being still, with silence, with welcoming him into our hearts. This series is called, «Be Fruitful».
When you think about it, fruitfulness was the first command in the Bible. God said to Adam and Eve, «Be fruitful and multiply». And the fruitfulness that I’m talking about and I will talk about in this series has to do with becoming the best that you can be, and realizing your potential, and getting ready for your own death, but the fruitfulness, the number one fruitfulness that I want to talk about, the key, the foundational to being fruitful has to do with your relationship with God. Jesus said, «Abide in me and you will bear much fruit, and thus glorify God».
Abiding Through Stillness and Silence
I want to talk about abiding, continuing, dwelling in, walking with. That’s what Jesus was doing in this gospel. Said that he went out to the mountain and he continued in prayer to God. He wasn’t just speaking the whole time. He was spending time being still in silence and quiet, and that is a major part of prayer. You see, prayer is communication. We communicate by speaking and we communicate by listening. Being still gives you a moment to listen. Be still and know that God is God. When I talk about being still and quiet, I want you to understand although Jesus went out and spent the whole night in prayer to God, you can build up to that. I don’t want you to be overwhelmed by thinking, «Oh, I gotta be still for an hour. I don’t think I can do it». Just five minutes. Just one minute. Get centered. So crucial.
The Sacred Walk as Prayer
Another way that you can be still, I love this, it comes right from the scriptures, is by walking. I wrote a book called, «The Sacred Walk». Abraham walked with God. Noah walked with God. Methuselah walked with God. Enoch walked with God. Adam and Eve walked with God in the Garden. Take a walk and pray. Be still. Be quiet as you walk. And it’s interesting, you’ll get a new perspective on things. A new power will come into you as you’re walking and you include God in the walk. I like to walk and go to a lake, and just look, feel the sunshine. I like to walk on the beach. I like to walk by the mountains. I like to walk at night and look up at the stars. You don’t have to say a word. Just spend time walking, and that’s a prayer too.
Overcoming Noise in Modern Life
I have these noise-canceling headphones that I use because it seems like when you try to be still and know that God is God, there’s all this noise everywhere. There’s blowers, there’s trash trucks, there’s air conditioners, and all these different things. Well, noise-canceling headphones work. Kind of feels weird, but you put 'em on and, wow, it gets real quiet. You might want to try that, or earplugs will work. That’s very important. Try to pick a time in the day that you can be still, especially early in the morning, late at night. But you can do it throughout the day. Jesus continued, and that’s what abiding is. You continue. You don’t just do it once in a while, you walk with God. Really important. And you will bear fruit.
The Primary Fruit: Knowing God Intimately
Now, what is the fruit that I’m talking about? It’s knowing. That’s a word in the Greek that implies sexual intimacy. It’s knowing God. It’s coming into. It’s beginning to hear his voice. It’s coming into his presence. It’s realizing who his person is. You are the temple of God, the scripture tells us, and we gotta get in touch with, have an awakening about the presence of God within us. We can pray and come to know God. And I want you to get in touch with focusing on God, communicating with God. That’s the number one fruitfulness that the Bible talks about.
And I want you to be fruitful and do the will of God. Be fruitful and multiply. Your prayer life can multiply. All of a sudden, things can happen to you in beautiful ways. Get in touch for a moment now with your thirst. I love how King David, the psalmist, poetically talked about his, «My soul is a thirst for God. I hunger for God. I desire God». Get in touch with that innermost craving, if you will, because really that’s from God. It’s a homing device to get us back to this communication with God. And I understand that it can be difficult at times, and I’ll talk about that in a little while, the purification that happens through prayer, and that’s important too, but right now, simply get in touch with your hunger and thirst. Deep within, we want to know God.
Reading Scripture as Prayer
Simply reading the Bible or reading good spiritual books is a prayer. One of the first times that I ever came to the Bible, I came right to Matthew chapter 7, verse 7, «Ask and you shall receive. Knock and the door will be opened. Seek and you will find,» and wow, did that change my life. Jesus was talkin' about prayer. Simply reading the Bible is prayer. That’s what it says in the Vatican II documents, if you’re Catholic. It talks about how at mass, when we speak, we pray, but when we hear the Word of God, we pray by listening. The scriptures help us to listen, because oftentimes when we’re still, when we’re quiet, it makes us susceptible to knowing God and hearing his voice.
«If today you hear the voice of the Lord, harden not your heart». It’s right from the scriptures. But oftentimes, we don’t hear that voice, but being still helps us to be susceptible to the voice of God.
The Power of Listening: The Story of Kevin Briggs
I wanted to talk to you about prayer and tell you that prayer is speaking. Yeah, we know about that, but I want to focus on listening. And I heard about this CHiP Officer. That’s the California Highway Patrol. His name was Kevin Briggs. He was the monitor of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, 23 years, and he found out that at least once a week, sometimes more than once, a couple times a week, somebody tried to commit suicide by jumping off the bridge. The way that he would talk them down, and it said in the article that I read, he saved over 200 people by talking them down from the Golden Gate Bridge in his 23 years. He listened to them, and then they gave up and then they didn’t commit suicide. They came down from the bridge.
I found out as a religious and as a priest, one of the ways that I can really minister to people isn’t by telling them what to do. It’s by listening, counseling, confessions, the ministry of presence, simply being with people. And religious life in a nutshell, I’m a Passionist religious. Priesthood in a nutshell is listening to people. And yeah, I say a lot, and I preach, and I counsel, and I do all those things when I hear confession, but I spend oodles and boodles of time listening to people, listening to my own heart, and listening to God. We must become good listeners and adept at listening.
God's Ever-Present Surroundings
Psalm 139, one of my favorite psalms, if not my favorite psalm, Psalm 139, written by King David, talks about how God surrounds us. God created us in our mother’s womb. He’s ever present. He surrounds us before and behind, and he lays his hand upon us, his hand of grace. What I want you to understand is that God is always there. We have to consent to his presence. We have to be still and know that God is God. Many of you are watching the program right now at home. When this program is finished, or maybe if you have a DVR, just stop it for a moment and invite God into your life more fully.
The Strengthening Power of Retreat and Prayer
I live at a retreat center. A retreat center is a place that people come and they retreat. They don’t retreat from the world, they retreat to get strengthened, to be fortified to go back into the world, facing the world and its troubles. And that’s exactly what prayer will do. Number one, it gives you a deeper relationship with God. You begin to hear his voice. You sense his presence. You get this energy flow from God that’s wonderful, but it also fortifies us to be able to face the world. And we all know about the troubles of the world, and there’s plenty out there. I want you to be strong, to live with passion, to realize your dreams, to become all that you can be. I want you to be fruitful.
It was Saint Benedict, great saint in the Catholic Church, founder of Western Monasticism, he said, «Listen with the ears of your heart». We all are familiar with the ears that we have in our head, but do you know that you have ears in your heart, and they can hear? For me, the heart of prayer is listening, and opening up my heart, and being susceptible to listen to God, to listen to people, to listen to my own heart.
The Story of Dolores Hart
I read a book about a woman. Get this, her name was Dolores Hart. She was a Hollywood actress back in the '50s, the envy of all women at that time because she was in scenes with Elvis Presley. Beautiful looking woman, ascending the ladder of success in Hollywood. Right in the middle of her success, right as she was going higher, she left Hollywood, and get this, she became a Benedictine nun.
Why in the world would a woman leave Hollywood and become a nun? Because the hustle, and the bustle, and the noise, and the glitter, and the glitz of Hollywood wasn’t fulfilling her. She was hearing a voice deep within, calling her to something more, to something fulfilling, to something that would satisfy. Remember I said get in touch with your desire, your hunger, your thirst? We all have it. The world kinda tries to quench it, but she was true to herself and true to her heart. Now, she’s an 83-year-old nun living in Bethlehem, Connecticut in a Benedictine monastery. Wrote a book called, «The Ear of Your Heart».
Silence as God's Original Language
No matter what you’re doing in life, it could be being a lawyer, or a doctor, or a housewife, or whatever it is, perhaps you’re a widow, we’re all distracted by life. Life is the great, beautiful miracle, but we can get distracted by it. It doesn’t satisfy. The world does not satisfy. Remember what Jesus taught. He said, «What would it profit you if you gain the whole world and you lose your soul»? And I so love Mother Dolores’s heart and what she did with her life, and now she’s bearing much fruit. You see, silence… and she, and I, and all who have joined religious life, spend a lot of time in silence. Silence and being still is God’s original language. Do you know that God has a language? Yes, he speaks telepathically through thoughts. I’ve discovered that, but it’s hard to hear 'em if you’re not quiet. He created the majestic universe, the stars, and the mountains, the oceans, the lakes, you and I in silence.
What we have to do is learn, learn a new language. I remember studying Spanish. My first language is English. I grew up in Massachusetts. And in high school, we studied Spanish. At first, it was so hard for me. All these different verbs, and words, and nouns, and tenses, and I couldn’t get it. In time, though, I did get it, and I learned a new language. Same thing with silence. It’s a new language. You don’t so much see it, you learn it and it teaches you. And at first I couldn’t get Spanish, but in time I did, and it’s the same with silence. At first you’ll come to it and it’s like you feel all distracted and everything, but you will learn. You don’t have to spend all night, just a minute or two. Get centered. And people are afraid of getting centered, and getting quiet, and getting still because oftentimes people are afraid of looking in.
Facing the Fear of Interior Silence
I remember when I went to novitiate. That’s a year of study and prayer to see if I wanted to become a Passionist, and I have now for over 36 years. I went to novitiate in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and I was with seven other young men. There were eight of us and we were going to go on a silent retreat away from the monastery to another monastery. And one of the men, he was so agitated because it was gonna be a five-day silent retreat with no talking and he was afraid of looking within. Don’t be afraid of looking within. You can learn, hear the voice of God resounding in our conscience. That’s exactly what it says in the catechism, «The voice of God resounds, echoes in our very own conscience».
Wow, don’t be afraid of looking within. You can find out who you truly are.
The Movie "Into Great Silence"
And then I remember a movie that I saw. It was called «Into Great Silence». It was filmed about the Carthusian community. The Carthusians are a very radical monastic community. This particular movie was filmed in France. Carthusians were founded by Saint Bruno, one of the saints in the Catholic Church, and they live in a monastery and they pretty much don’t leave. They spend time in community, in silence, and in prayer. Took 'em years, but finally the movie production company got permission to go into that monastery and film the film. They showed the real life depiction of the monastery. They would show monks going to prayer. They would show people kneeling in their rooms and praying, blowing their nose, coughing.
Life the way it really is. Perhaps the highlight in the movie were the bells that were ringing. That was about it. That’s why it didn’t do very well, but it wasn’t meant to do very well. It was trying to depict what prayer is. And oftentimes, if you’re looking for bells, and whistles, and mountaintop experiences in prayer, you’re gonna be disappointed very quickly, and that’s why a lot of people fall away. I love our saint, Saint Paul of the cross. One of the reasons why he is a saint is because he didn’t feel a lot of consolation in his prayer life, but he persevered. He was faithful.
Persevering Through Dry Times in Prayer
And that’s what you need to know about prayer, that a lot of people stumble with this. They get scandalized by quiet. Don’t be scandalized. It’s the language of love. And if your prayer life isn’t full of consolation, don’t fall away. «Blessed are you who believe without seeing». That’s exactly what Jesus said. In this case, the seeing means the feelings of your prayer life. And yes, there will be times, when you will feel the glory of God, and you will sense his voice, and you’ll be illumined by the Holy Spirit, and those are wonderful times, but those times aren’t gonna come unless you give yourself to the times where you’re not feeling things.
The Stages of Prayer: Purgative, Illuminative, and Unitive
This is something called the purgative way. Another saint, Saint John of the cross, I talked about Saint Paul of the cross. There’s another Catholic saint called Saint John of the cross, taught about the dark night of the senses and the purgative way, he called it. That’s when consolation and the sense of the presence of God, that’s when you feel empty and dry, like you’re going through a desert. And I hear that all the time from people, «Father, I feel like I’m goin' through a desert».
Well, there are desert times in our life. Just to let you know, in the desert, by the way, is where God revealed himself to Moses and to the Hebrews. Desert’s not such a bad place. And then besides the purgative way, and we all are gonna be purged. We’re not seeking God for his gifts and his feelings, we’re seeking God for his presence, for who he really is. And then Saint John of the cross talks about the illuminative way. There’s the purgative and the illuminative. That’s when the Holy Spirit touches you, speaks to you. Maybe you’ll see light, feel the glory. Yes, it’s so beautiful. And then the unitive way. That’s the next and the final.
This is what we’re after. Abiding, communing, oneness, knowing God. Remember what I told you about knowing God in a personal way? And these things, it’s not progressive, like you’re purged, and then you’re Illumined, and then you have the unitive way. It’s cyclic. You can in the same day have a purgation, an illumination, and unity, oneness with God. There’s no way to describe it, but the bottom line is is that prayer, stillness, silence, quiet, walking with God is crucial. I am praying and I know it’s the will of God that you will bear fruit, fruit that will last.
The Foundation of Fruitfulness
And the number one place, the foundation that the scriptures talk about, that Jesus talked about, that the saints have talked about where we have to be fruitful is in our relationship with God. And yes, there are times when we intercede for people, and we pray with petition, and we use words of praise and thanksgiving. Those are important, but the key to prayer, and to abiding, and to bearing fruit, I believe and I’ve committed my life to prayer, has to do with stillness, and silence, and quiet.
Take walks. Take time out to smell a rose. Don’t be afraid of quiet. It won’t hurt you. Don’t be scandalized by it. It’s God’s original language. One of my favorite saints is Saint Teresa of Avila. She was a Carmelite. And if you know anything about the Carmel, it’s very committed to prayer. She wrote this, «Let nothing disturb you. Let nothing frighten you. All things are passing. God never changes. Patience obtains all things. Nothing is wanting to the one who possesses God. God alone suffices». I am praying that as you watch this series and these programs, you will bear much fruit. And the foundation of bearing fruit is abide in Jesus and you will bear much fruit. Don’t just live, live with passion.