Interior Peace Journey

Got peace? Join me for the next six weeks as we cultivate a new way of living in 2019…the way of interior peace. We begin today and will post the new week's pathway every Sunday. I pray this will start you on a journey that will last a lifetime.

Overall Goal: May the peace of Christ reign in your hearts (Col 3:15). The goal is to help you cultivate and maintain a life of interior peace amidst the different seasons of your spiritual journey with God. We’ll do this by first learning to be attentive to and respond to the different movements/promises of God in your spiritual life and then, encourage a type of response that will open you up to receive the most grace. By helping you be attentive to God’s action in your ordinary life, you will cultivate a deeper trust, deeper surrender and live a deeper interior peace, in spite of circumstances.

Week 1: The Season of Wooing. God’s relentless pursuit. Goal of the Week: Discover God’s Promise--I will always love you and will never withdraw that love. Our response: Receptivity of heart. Pondering those experiences for later acts of trust.

Day 1:

Quote: "I have called you by name, from the very beginning. You are mine and I am yours. You are my Beloved, on you my favor rests. I have molded you in the depths of the earth and knitted you together in your mother's womb. I have carved you in the palm of my hands and hidden you in the shadow of my embrace. I look at you in with infinite tenderness and care for you with a care more intimate that that of a mother for her child. I have counted every hair on your head and guided you at every step. Wherever you go, I go with you and wherever you rest, I keep watch. I will give you food that will satisfy your hunger and drink that will quench all your thirst. I will not hide my face from you. You know me as your own and I know you as my own. You belong to me." Henri Nouwen

Response: "Let God love you! God's embrace and God's love makes us holy. We can only allow, receive, and do everything we can to remove obstacles, to be attentive to God's will, which is always intent on our good, on making us capable of receiving Him. "Ruth Burrows - The Essence of Prayer

Day 2:

Quote: "I never want you to doubt my commitment to you. I am the lover of your soul, so let me meet your every need. I long to set you free from searching for false love and acceptance in the wrong places. Let me hold onto your heart and fill you up with eternal love. Then you will feel my Holy Presence and fall in love with Me." His Princess

Response: Questions for Personal Reflection: How can I let Jesus act in me? How can I permit the grace of God to freely operate in my life?

Day 3:

Quote: "God does not conquer our hearts except through the excess of love." Cantata of Love. "His gaze upon the depth of our soul is steady and secure! It reaches own to depths within our souls that we cannot perceive. The presence of His eyes rests upon our soul permamently." Contemplative Hunger For God, to gaze is to love, and to work favors. God's gaze works 4 blessings in the soul: it cleanses the person, makes the person beautiful, enriches and enlightens the person. It's the effect of a God who is constantly gazing at us, whose eyes anticipate, radiate, penetrate and elicit beauty. He does not simply look at the beautiful, His looks make a person beautiful. The Impact of God.

Response: "A necessary condition for interior peace is what we might call goodwill (or purity of heart). It is not perfection, nor sainthood achieved, but a habitual determination to always say "yes" to God, in the great things as in the small things." Fr. Jacques Philippe - Interior Peace Today, try to say "yes" to God in all the things you hear Him asking of you.

Day 4:

Quote: "If a person is seeking God, much more is the Beloved seeking them. God is an approaching God and our main job will not be to construct but to RECEIVE. The key word will be not so much "achievement" as "space". Making space for God in order to receive." The Impact of God

Response: "Receptivity means (in part) a rejection of every impulse of anxiety about our relationship with God as though it has to be established, inherited, or summoned to us. When we ask, "what can I do for God?" there is only God's answer, "Nothing, beloved! Only receive with glad heart what I give, that is...myself. The greatest gift you can give me is the trust that lives by this truth" - The Essence of Prayer - Ruth Burrows

Day 5:

Quote: "Yes Father, my soul proclaims your greatness, and my spirit rejoices in you! You are good and kind, loving and compassionate toward me. You know who I am, and you understand my weakness. You delight in how you created me and you never cease to teach me how to live the life you have created me for. Daily you come to meet me with mercy and strength. Daily you supply what I lack and help me when my own ideas and abilities are not enough. Father, you forgive me when i cave in (again!) to temptation, every time! You meet my repentance with your pardon and you surround me anew with your love, compassion and tender mercy. I rejoice because you are slow to anger and never hold a grudge. You always show me mercy when I don't deserve it. I am amazed because you delight in me. You meet me with peace, wisdom and direction. The strength of your arm holds me, lifts me up and gently moves me forward at a pace that allows me to breathe again. Your promises give me hope. You give me the reassurrance that I am loved even when I feel frustrated by my weaknesses. Father, how good you are. I try to be faithful to you. I pour out my heart to you and you pour out your love on me." Word Among Us Magnificat Reflection

Response: "Consider your souls like the image of a surface of a lake, above which the sun is shining. If the surface of the lake is peaceful and tranquil, the sun will be reflected in this lake; and the more peaceful the lake, the more perfectly will it be reflected. If, on the contrary, the surface of the lake is agitated, undulating, then the image of the sun cannot be reflected in it. The more our soul is peaceful and tranquil, the more God is reflected in it, the more His image expresses itself in us, the more His grace acts through us." Fr. Jacques Philippe