Searching for and Maintaining Peace Quotes

“In order to resist fear and discouragement, it is necessary that through prayer - through a personal experience of God re-encountered, recognized and loved in prayer - we taste and see how good the Lord is (Psalm 34).”
― Jacques Philippe, Searching for and Maintaining Peace: A Small Treatise on Peace of Heart

“Consider the 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 can not be reflected in it. It is a little bit like this with regard to our soul in relationship to God. 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.”
― Jacques Philippe, Searching for and Maintaining Peace

“Our Difficulty in Believing in Providence The first obstacle is that, as long as we have not experienced concretely the fidelity of Divine Providence to provide for our essential needs, we have difficulty believing in it and we abandon it. We have hard heads, the words of Jesus do not suffice for us, we want to see at least a little in order to believe! Well, we do not see it operating around us in a clear manner. How, then, are we to experience it? It is important to know one thing: We cannot experience this support from God unless we leave Him the necessary space in which He can express Himself. I would like to make a comparison. As long as a person who must jump with a parachute does not jump out into the void, he cannot feel that the cords of the parachute will support him, because the parachute has not yet had the chance to open. One must first jump and it is only later that one feels carried. And so it is in spiritual life: “God gives in the measure that we expect of Him,” says Saint John of the Cross. And Saint Francis de Sales says: “The measure of Divine Providence acting on us is the degree of confidence that we have in it.” This is where the problem lies. Many do not believe in Providence because they’ve never experienced it, but they’ve never experienced it because they’ve never jumped into the void and taken the leap of faith. They never give it the possibility to intervene. They calculate everything, anticipate everything, they seek to resolve everything by counting on themselves, instead of counting on God. The founders of religious orders proceed with the audacity of this spirit of faith. They buy houses without having a penny, they receive the poor although they have nothing with which to feed them. Then, God performs miracles for them. The checks arrive and the granaries are filled. But, too often, generations later, everything is planned, calculated. One doesn’t incur an expense without being sure in advance to have enough to cover it. How can Providence manifest itself? And the same is true in the spiritual life. If a priest drafts all his sermons and his talks, down to the least comma, in order to be sure that he does not find himself wanting before his audience, and never has the audacity to begin preaching with a prayer and confidence in God as his only preparation, how can he have this beautiful experience of the Holy Spirit, Who speaks through his mouth? Does the Gospel not say, …do not worry about how to speak or what you should say; for what you are to say will be given to you when the time comes; because it will not be you who will be speaking, but the Spirit of your Father will be speaking in you (Matthew 10:19)? Let us be very clear. Obviously we do not want to say that it is a bad thing to be able to anticipate things, to develop a budget or prepare one’s homilies. Our natural abilities are also instruments in the hands of Providence! But everything depends on the spirit in which we do things. We must clearly understand that there is an enormous difference in attitude of heart between one, who in fear of finding himself wanting because he does not believe in the intervention of God on behalf of those who lean on Him, programs everything in advance to the smallest detail and does not undertake anything except in the exact measure of its actual possibilities, and one who certainly undertakes legitimate things, but who abandons himself with confidence in God to provide all that is asked of him and who thus surpasses his own possibilities. And that which God demands of us always goes beyond our natural human possibilities!”
― Jacques Philippe, Searching for and Maintaining Peace

“The sign of spiritual progress is not so much never falling as it is being able to lift oneself up quickly after one falls.”
― Jacques Philippe, Searching for and Maintaining Peace: A Small Treatise on Peace of Heart

“The Lord can leave us wanting relative to certain things (sometimes judged indispensable in the eyes of the world), but He never leaves us deprived of what is essential: His presence, His peace and all that is necessary for the complete fulfillment of our lives, according to His plans for us.”
― Jacques Philippe, Searching for and Maintaining Peace: A Small Treatise on Peace of Heart

“God would spare us, if He could, all these trials, but they are necessary in order that we should be convinced of our complete powerlessness to do good by ourselves.”
― Jacques Philippe, Searching for and Maintaining Peace

“The measure of Divine Providence in us depends on the degree of trust that we have in It.
Do not anticipate the unpleasant events of this life by apprehension, rather anticipate them with the perfect hope that, as they happen, God, to Whom you belong, will protect you. He had protected you up to the present moment; just remain firmly in the hands of His providence and He will help you in all situations and at those times when you find yourself unable to walk, He will carry you. What should you fear, my dearest daughter, since you belong to God Who has so stronly assured us that for those who love Him all things turn into happiness. Do not think of what may happen tomorrow, because the same eternal Father Who takes care of you today, will take care of you tomorrow and forever. Either He will see that nothing bad happens to you or, if He allows anything bad to happen to you, He will give you the invincible courage to bear it. (St Francis de Sales)”
― Jacques Philippe, Searching for and Maintaining Peace: A Small Treatise on Peace of Heart

“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.”
― Jacques Philippe, Searching for and Maintaining Peace: A Small Treatise on Peace of Heart

“«Se me han dado todos los bienes desde el momento en que ya no los he buscado».”
― Jacques Philippe, La paz interior

“Every Christian must be thoroughly convinced that his spiritual life can in no way be viewed as the quiet unfolding of an inconsequential life without any problems; rather it must be viewed as the scene of a constant and sometimes painful battle, which will not end until death”
― Rev. Jacques Philippe, Searching for and Maintaining Peace

“Pay attention to these words: "Keep your soul at peace." It is an expression employed by our Divine Maser. Your soul should always be enclosed in itself - or better enclosed in Jesus Who dwells therein - not imprisoned or locked up under a key, but in gentle repose, kept in Jesus, Who holds it in His arms.”
― Jacques Philippe, Searching for and Maintaining Peace: A Small Treatise on Peace of Heart

“In order to understand this, we can use an image (without exaggerating, as we should always avoid doing in making comparisons); but one that can be illuminating. Consider the 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 can not be reflected in it. It is a little bit like this with regard to our soul in relationship to God. 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.”
― Jacques Philippe, Searching for and Maintaining Peace

“La paz, que lleva consigo la alegría, el mundo no puede darla. —Siempre están los hombres haciendo paces, y siempre andan enzarzados con guerras, porque han olvidado el consejo de luchar por dentro, de acudir al auxilio de Dios, para que El venza, y conseguir así la paz en el propio yo, en el propio hogar, en la sociedad y en el mundo.”
― Jacques Philippe, La paz interior

“If He permits suffering, then it is our strength to believe, as Thérèse of Lisieux says, that “God does not permit unnecessary suffering.”
― Jacques Philippe, Searching for and Maintaining Peace

“For us believers, the essential reason by virtue of which we can always be at peace does not come from this world. My kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36).”
― Jacques Philippe, Searching for and Maintaining Peace

“And happily we cannot always understand! Otherwise, how would it be possible to allow the Wisdom of God to freely work according to His designs? Where would there be room for confidence? It is true that for many things we would not act as God would act! We would not have chosen the folly of the cross as a means of redemption! But fortunately it is the Wisdom of God and not ours that rules all things, because it is infinitely more powerful and more loving and, above all, more merciful than ours. While the Wisdom of God is incomprehensible in its ways, in the sometimes baffling manner in which it acts in us, then let us say that the Wisdom of God will also be incomprehensible in those things that it prepares for those who put their hope in it. For that which it prepares surpasses infinitely in glory and beauty that which we can imagine or conceive: What eye has not seen nor ear heard, what the human heart has not conceived, what God has prepared for those who love Him, this God has revealed to us through His Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:9). The wisdom of man can only produce works on a human level. Only the Wisdom of God can realize things divine, and it is to divine heights that it destines us. This is consequently what must be our strength when faced with the question of evil: not a philosophical response, but the confidence of a child in God, in His Love and in His Wisdom. The certitude that Now we know that God works in every way for the good of those who love Him and are called in accordance with His plan (Romans 8:28) and the sufferings of the present time simply don’t compare with the glory to come that will be revealed to us (Romans 8:18).”
― Jacques Philippe, Searching for and Maintaining Peace

“Even for those who abandon themselves to Him, God permits suffering; He leaves them wanting of certain things, in a manner sometimes painful.”
― Jacques Philippe, Searching for and Maintaining Peace

“the sufferings of the present time simply don’t compare with the glory to come that will be revealed to us (Romans 8:18).”
― Jacques Philippe, Searching for and Maintaining Peace

“Evil is a mystery, a scandal and it will always be so.”
― Jacques Philippe, Searching for and Maintaining Peace: A Small Treatise on Peace of Heart

“la paz interior no sólo es la condición del combate espiritual, sino que suele ser lo que está en juego.”
― Jacques Philippe, La paz interior

“This goodwill, this habitual determination to always say “yes” to God, in the great things as in the small, is a sine qua non for interior peace.”
― Jacques Philippe, Searching for and Maintaining Peace

“As the assaults of evil, thoughts of discouragement and distrust, are incessant, so, in the same manner and in order to resist them, must our prayers be incessant and untiring.”
― Jacques Philippe, Searching for and Maintaining Peace

“Estoy concentrado en lo negativo de mi situación, en lo que me falta para ser feliz, y eso me vuelve descontento, envidioso y desanimado y, en consecuencia, no adelanto; me digo: la auténtica vida está en otra parte y, sencillamente, me olvido de vivir.”
― Jacques Philippe, La paz interior (Patmos)

“Se trata concretamente de la tentación de creer que falta algo esencial en nuestra situación (personal, familiar...) y que, a causa de eso, se nos niega el avance y la posibilidad de desarrollarnos espiritualmente.”
― Jacques Philippe, La paz interior (Patmos)

“La certeza que infunde en nosotros el hábito de la oración es más fuerte que la que se desprende de los razonamientos, aunque sean de la más alta teología.”
― Jacques Philippe, La paz interior (Patmos)

“La medida de nuestra paz interior será la de nuestro abandono, es decir la de nuestro desprendimiento.”
― Jacques Philippe, La paz interior (Patmos)

“I would like to make a comparison. As long as a person who must jump with a parachute does not jump out into the void, he cannot feel that the cords of the parachute will support him, because the parachute has not yet had the chance to open. One must first jump and it is only later that one feels carried. And so it is in spiritual life: “God gives in the measure that we expect of Him,” says Saint John of the Cross. And Saint Francis de Sales says: “The measure of Divine Providence acting on us is the degree of confidence that we have in it.” This is where the problem lies. Many do not believe in Providence because they’ve never experienced it, but they’ve never experienced it because they’ve never jumped into the void and taken the leap of faith. They never give it the possibility to intervene. They calculate everything, anticipate everything, they seek to resolve everything by counting on themselves, instead of counting on God. The founders of religious orders proceed with the audacity of this spirit of faith. They buy houses without having a penny, they receive the poor although they have nothing with which to feed them. Then, God performs miracles for them. The checks arrive and the granaries are filled. But, too often, generations later, everything is planned, calculated. One doesn’t incur an expense without being sure in advance to have enough to cover it. How can Providence manifest itself? And the same is true in the spiritual life.”
― Jacques Philippe, Searching for and Maintaining Peace

“Escuchemos el reproche que el Señor nos dirige por boca de Santa Catalina de Siena: «Por qué no confías en mí, tu Creador? ¿Por qué te apoyas en ti? ¿No soy fiel y leal contigo?... Redimido, y recuperada la gracia en virtud de la sangre de mi Hijo único, el hombre puede, pues, decir que ha experimentado mi fidelidad. Y sin embargo, parece que todavía duda de que yo sea lo bastante poderoso como para socorrerle, lo bastante fuerte como para asistirle y defenderle contra sus enemigos, lo bastante sabio como para iluminar el ojo de su inteligencia, o de que tengo la clemencia necesaria como para querer darle lo que precisa para su salvación. Parece creer que no soy lo bastante rico como para hacer su fortuna, ni lo bastante hermoso como para hacerle hermoso; se diría que tiene miedo de no encontrar en mí el pan para alimentarse ni el vestido para cubrirse.» (Diálogo, cap. 14).”
― Jacques Philippe, La paz interior

“on the eve of our life we will be judged by how much we loved” (Saint John of the Cross)”
― Jacques Philippe, Searching for and Maintaining Peace

“Con frecuencia nos inquietamos y nos alteramos pretendiendo resolver todas las cosas por nosotros mismos, mientras que sería mucho más eficaz permanecer tranquilos bajo la mirada de Dios y dejar que Él actué en nosotros con su sabiduría y su poder infinitamente superiores. Porque así dice el Señor, el Santo de Israel: En la conversión y la quietud está vuestra salvación, y la quietud y la confianza serán vuestra fuerza, pero no habéis querido (Is 30, 15).”
― Jacques Philippe, La paz interior (Patmos)