One of the things that has escaped my grasp fully to date as a Christian, as a Catholic, is this promised peace that surpasses understanding. Oh, I've experienced it in moments... but it's temporary and elusive.
I'm a worrier. I suffer anxiety when not in control which means really that I suffer from anxiety fequently.
I've been reading Jacques Philippe's Searching for and Maintaining Peace: A Small Treatise on Peace of Heart and it's really been making me rethink a lot of things and, slowly but assuredly, I'm beginning to experience peace more frequently. It's an easy read and filled with what might seem obvious in many ways yet it effectively ponders the prerequisites to peace that must first be dealt with. Here's a teaser excerpt:
A necessary condition for interior peace, then, is what we might call goodwill. We could also call it purity of heart. It is the stable and constant disposition of a person who is determined more than anything to love God, who desires sincerely to prefer in all circumstances the will of God to his own,
who does not wish to consciously refuse anything to God. Maybe (and even certainly) in everyday life, his behavior will not be in perfect harmony with this desire, this intention. There would undoubtedly be many imperfections in his effort to accomplish this desire. But he will suffer, he will ask the Lord’s pardon for this and seek to correct himself. Following moments of eventual failure, he will strive to come back to his usual disposition of wanting to say “yes” to God in all things, without exception. Here, then, is what we mean by goodwill. It is not perfection, nor sainthood achieved, because it could well coexist with hesitations, imperfections and even faults. But it is the way, because it is just this habitual disposition of heart (whose foundation is found in the virtues of faith, hope and love), which permits the grace of God to carry us, little by little, toward perfection.
who does not wish to consciously refuse anything to God. Maybe (and even certainly) in everyday life, his behavior will not be in perfect harmony with this desire, this intention. There would undoubtedly be many imperfections in his effort to accomplish this desire. But he will suffer, he will ask the Lord’s pardon for this and seek to correct himself. Following moments of eventual failure, he will strive to come back to his usual disposition of wanting to say “yes” to God in all things, without exception. Here, then, is what we mean by goodwill. It is not perfection, nor sainthood achieved, because it could well coexist with hesitations, imperfections and even faults. But it is the way, because it is just this habitual disposition of heart (whose foundation is found in the virtues of faith, hope and love), which permits the grace of God to carry us, little by little, toward perfection.What struck me in the book, what stood out (and should to every Christian), is this proclamation that God's love is patient with those of us who are slow to rid ourselves of that which grieves Him:
The first goal of spiritual combat, that toward which our efforts must above all else be directed, is not to always obtain a victory (over our temptations, our weaknesses, etc.), rather it is to learn to maintain peace of heart under all circumstances, even in the case of defeat. It is only in this way that we can pursue the other goal, which is the elimination of our failures, our faults, our imperfections and sins. This is ultimately the victory that we must want and desire, knowing, however, that it is not by our own strength that we will obtain it and, therefore, not pretending that we can obtain it immediately. It is uniquely the grace of God that will obtain the victory for us, whose grace will be the more efficacious and rapid, the more we place maintaining our interior peace and sense of confident abandonment in the hands of our Father in Heaven.
Confident abandonment is the key. It's what we should strive for. Placing all, placing our circumstances, placing the whole of our being, in God's hands and coming to the knowledge that He is working in and through us for our good despite that which might seem to be telling us quite the opposite.
I'm not there yet. May not ever get there. But I'm striving to get there anyway:
We would like to come back for a few moments to this affirmation of the Bible, which is ultimately surprising, that God leaves us wanting for nothing. This will serve to unmask a temptation, sometimes subtle, which is very common in the Christian life, one into which many fall and which greatly impedes spiritual progress. It concerns precisely the temptation to believe that, in the situation which is ours (personal, family, etc.), we lack something essential and that because of this, our progress, and the possibility of blossoming spiritually, is denied us. For example, I lack good health, therefore I am unable to pray as I believe it is indispensable to do. Or my immediate family prevents me from organizing my spiritual activities as I wish. Or, again, I don’t have the qualities, the strength, the virtue, the gifts that I believe necessary in order to accomplish something beautiful for God, according to the plan of a Christian life. I am not satisfied with my life, with my person, with my circumstances and I live constantly with the feeling that as long as things are such, it will be impossible for me to live truly and intensely. I feel underprivileged compared to others and I carry in me the constant nostalgia of another life, more privileged, where, finally, I could do things that are worthwhile. I have the feeling, according to Rimbaud’s expression, that “the real life is elsewhere,” elsewhere than in the life that is mine. And that the latter is not a real life, that it doesn’t offer me the conditions for real spiritual growth because of certain sufferances or limitations. I am concentrated on the negatives of my situation, on that which I lack in order to be happy. This renders me unhappy, envious and discouraged and I am unable to go forward. The real life is elsewhere, I tell myself, and I simply forget to live.
The goal is to live, with the knowledge that no matter what, God's love trumps, His care for us is immense and that nothing can separate us from that care. Words easily spoken, even trite to the ear, but profoundly true.
Peace is what I'm looking for. Abandoning all to God is what I must do daily. Not fearing what it is that this abandonment means will be the biggest obstacle.
Lord, help me find that peace, help me empty my heart and hands of anything preventing that finding:
