Thoughts on peace

 

Claim Your Peace

I really wish you an ever deeper peace. I know that that peace quite often lives underneath the turmoils and anxieties of our heart and doesn’t always mean inner harmony or emotional tranquility. That peace that God gives us quite often is beyond our thoughts and feelings, and we have to really trust that peace is there for us to claim even in the midst of our moments of despair. Henri Nouwen

Thoughts on prayer for others

 

God’s Heart Has Become One With Ours

When we say to people, “I will pray for you,” we make a very important commitment. The sad thing is that this remark often remains nothing but a well-meant expression of concern. But when we learn to descend with our mind into our heart, then all those who have become part of our lives are led into the healing presence of God and touched by him in the center of our being. We are speaking here about a mystery for which words are inadequate. It is the mystery that the heart, which is the center of our being, is transformed by God into his own heart, a heart large enough to embrace the entire universe. Through prayer we can carry in our heart all human pain and sorrow, all conflicts and agonies, all torture and war, all hunger, loneliness, and misery, not because of some great psychological or emotional capacity, but because God’s heart has become one with ours. Henri Nouwen

Thoughts on giving

 

Enter the Flow

There is a foundational pattern of giving and receiving in every aspect of the universe—modeled on the very shape of God as Trinity. Once we have a dynamic waterwheel of outflowing love, as St. Bonaventure called it, it flows in only one direction: always positive, always giving, always outpouring, where there is no possibility of anger, unlove, wrath, or hatred in God. The doctrine of the Trinity was developed to order to move us to the dynamic principle of three, where there is always movement forward. But the ego naturally pulls us back into the principle of two, which is inherently comparative, competitive, and antagonistic, and usually either/or. Trinity undoes that. All we can do is jump into the flow and allow it to happen. The only way of really jumping in is through standing in love—even in our mind.

—from the book Silent Compassion: Finding God in Contemplation 
by Richard Rohr, OFM

Thoughts on sharing our faith

 Our faith is ultimately very simple. If we can't explain it simply, likely we ourselves don't "get it." Perhaps that's why St. Ignatius wanted fully formed Jesuits to take a special care for the formation of children so that we don't get ahead of ourselves but rather stay ultimately simple. 

In this Sunday's Gospel, Jesus speaks simple words to simple people. "A sower went out to sow..." Only people who live within this fundamental simplicity can enter the kingdom of God. Such people are uncomplicated, open to exploring deeper truths, love to be amazed, easily identify obstacles to their spiritual growth, and joyfully work to remedy these (without wanting to justify themselves). They are fascinated by things of faith. Thus they move from shallow soil to deeply fertile soil, ready for the divine planting of the kingdom. 

-Fr. Anthony Wieck, SJ

Thoughts on truth

 

Truth Will Set Us Free

St. John the Evangelist tells us that the truth will set us free. But what does that mean? St. Francis found the truth that leads to freedom in the truths of the Gospel, and the freedom he found was the freedom to love. God’s truth imparts to us the freedom not only to grasp the truth that is being imparted but also the freedom from what previously had been preventing us from acting on that truth. The Gospel itself will show us not only how we are to discern the truth, but how the truth leads to the action we call love.

—from the book Surrounded by Love: Seven Teachings from Saint Francis
by Murray Bodo, OFM

Thoughts on peacefulness

 

Finding Our Inner Peace

There will always be false prophets and deceivers, “wolves in sheep’s clothing,” Jesus called them. But this does not mean that we are to go about criticizing and correcting; that only separates further. It is only necessary to be true to oneself; and if it is called for, to speak our own understanding of what the truth is without denigrating others. Peace is achieved more effectively by trying to bring out the best, not pointing out the worst, in others. And we bring out the best in others by being ourselves peaceful. Our own peaceful presence will do more than trying to persuade others that we are right and they are wrong. Peacefulness is its own persuasion. That is the best option, it seems to me, for those committed to living the Gospel. The Franciscan response to sin and division is to forgive myself and my neighbor, thereby becoming peaceful in my own center, and then to reach out to others and “work mercy” with them, even with those whom I find it difficult to love, who repel me in any way. We work together toward the good, or we perish as individuals, as societies and as civilizations.

— from Surrounded by Love: Seven Teachings from Saint Francis
by Murray Bodo, OFM

Happy Independence Day!

 

Thoughts on silence

 

Everything is Indeed Good I just returned from a walk through the dark woods. It was cool and windy, but everything spoke of you. Everything: the clouds, the trees, the wet grass, the valley with its distant lights, the sound of the wind. They all spoke of your resurrection; they all made me aware that everything is indeed good. In you all is created good, and by you all creation is renewed and brought to an even greater glory than it possessed at its beginning. O Lord, I know now that it is in silence, in a quiet moment, in a forgotten corner that you will meet me, call me by name and speak to me a word of peace. It is in my stillest hour that you become the risen Lord to me. Henri Nouwen

Thoughts on St. Francis

 

God Will Show Us the Way A preference for light and beauty is one of the reasons St. Francis is attractive to us and why he was so successfully a peacemaker in his own time. It is why today his town of Assisi has been the site of peace conferences and prayer meetings to promote peace. St. Francis is seen as the gentle saint who shows us that the way to peace and justice is the way Christ has shown us in the Gospels, namely, the way of the love of God, which is THE way; and its companion is the way of love of our neighbor as ourselves. This basic Gospel truth is the message of the Gospel St. Francis finally was able to hear in the Gospel he lived and preached. He learned that if we put those two commandments in precisely that order, we easily see how and when we sin in departing from the truth and in hurting our neighbor. All truth is from God, and God’s truth is that we are to love God, and loving God will show us how to love our neighbor. Living the Gospel must start with embracing this basic Gospel truth. Only then will we, too, begin to hear the voice of God. — from Surrounded by Love: Seven Teachings from Saint Francis by Murray Bodo, OFM