Pallotti believed silence, solitude and prayer to be the fundamental conditions for growth into a personal relationship with God.
My Jesus, through the intercession of Mary, and of all the Angels and the Saints with the infinite merits of your going apart to be with the Father, of your silence, and of your prayers, destroy all that I’ve done that’s evil in me, and in others. And now and always, your periods of recollection will be my periods of recollection, your silence will be my silence, your prayers will be my prayers. (OOCC X, p.658)
Like Jesus, Pallotti would often withdraw into the silence of his heart and picture himself elsewhere:
— with Mary and the disciples in the Cenacle; (OOCC X: 86-87)
— I will imagine myself on the cross with the good thief, prostrate on the ground with David, fallen on the Damascus road with Paul. (OOCC X: 14)
— In order to increase the fervour of the Spirit I will imagine myself….in solitude with St. Anthony, St. Jerome and others, then on Mt. Alvernia with St. Francis. (OOCC X: 81)
Photo. Sr.M.S.
