St. Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuits, advised the following for novices seeking to enter his order: “All should take the most diligent care to guard the gates of the senses—particularly the eyes, ears, and tongue.” Guarding the senses and not allowing them free rein is good advice for all of us, not just novices embarking on holy orders. One way that we can do this is to maintain “custody of the eyes,” meaning that we should not allow our eyes to look anywhere we please, giving idle curiosity the power to direct our gaze. There are many things that it would be better not to see. We simply cannot un-see things once we have seen them, and some things get burned into our souls, as it were. Parents do well to teach their children restraint of the eyes. As a former teacher of teachers used to say, you must first get control of your students’ eyes. But not just the eyes, for what we hear and touch and what goes into and out of our mouths also leaves its imprint on our souls. There is a silence of the eyes as well as of the ears, and even a silence of the heart and soul. We do well to remember that God often speaks in a whisper, and if we are surrounded by noise and distractions we might never hear, see or taste the goodness of the Lord.
