January 2026
‘Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour’ Matthew 25.13 (NRSV)
This is a key saying for the Fellowship of Contemplative Prayer. It goes to the heart of what we are about. The words written by the prophet Isaiah are clear and direct. There is also a beautiful symmetry where ‘listen’ and ‘silence’ are comprised of many of the same letters. These are perfect words for the start of the new year. They ‘hone’ in us the very essence of contemplative prayer as we embrace all that lies ahead.
They come at a significant point in the prophesy of Isaiah. The wider and larger picture is that Jerusalem has been saved from Assyria but Isaiah prophesies that the city will fall to Babylon and the people taken into exile. This will not be the end of the nation, though it will seem like it to them. Eventually through various geopolitical events the exiles will return to their homeland.
All this God reveals to the prophet, so He may comfort and encourage the people, reassuring them in these difficult times. So clear is all this in Isaiah’s mind that from now on he leaves current events behind as he stands with the captives in Babylon at the end of their long exile and implores them to ‘Listen to me in silence’.
At the beginning of a new year, we too look out into the unknown. It can be a time filled with hope with much to look forward to. There may also be anxieties about how things are going to work out for us and others, including those dear to us. We can take heart that as God brought the Israelites back from captivity in exile (and indeed much earlier freed them from slavery in Egypt) so He will show us the right pathway; one that leads away from all that holds us back from being the people God wants us to be, in Christ.
We will be greatly helped if take this saying into our hearts and minds and let God speak to us in the quiet: ‘Listen to me in silence’. Let us also direct this Saying out into our intercessions for all those who need to know that God is with them, whatever they are facing. May we intercede for our troubled world this January, offering a place where silence can be the balm of healing, peace and renewal.