St. Faustina (1905 – 1938) once remarked as follows about the tongue:
“The tongue is a small member, but it does big things. A religious who does not keep silence will never attain holiness; that is, she will never become a saint. Let her not delude herself - unless it is the Spirit of God who is speaking through her, for then she must not keep silent. But, in order to hear the voice of God, one has to have silence in one's soul and to keep silence; not a gloomy silence but an interior silence; that is to say, recollection in God.”
Many Christians think that the ethics of speech involves simply not sinning with one’s tongue. But St. Faustina, following the book of James, suggest that silence – or at least being slow to speak - should be the Christian’s default mode.