Searching For and Maintaining Peace

Searching For and Maintaining Peace

                                                                                          - Fr. Jacques Philippe -

      Fr. Jacques Philippe was born into a Christian family on March 12, 1947 in Lorraine, France. In 1976, he met the Community of the Beatitudes and responded to the God's call to follow Him through this vocation. Then he spent several years in Jerusalem and Nazareth to study the Hebrew and the Jewish roots of Christianity. In 1981, he went to Rome to study theology and canon law and also began his work as a spiritual director, working in the formation of priests and seminarians of the Community. In 1994, he returned to France to be responsible about spiritual direction, the development of training in the Community, and preached retreats. In recent years, he has helped to spiritual direction, preaching retreats, and working for the development of the Community in Asia and Oceania.

      We are living in an era full of temptation, sin and lack of peace, so the searching for God has become more difficult, while the path to God requires us have to try much, sacrifice, give up and especially peace of mind. Therefore Fr. Jacques Philippe wrote this book to help us learn how to keep the peace in our heart, our soul in every situation of life because peace of heart is a pure gift of God, it is something we should seek, pursue and ask Him for without cease. The author invited us to trust and offer to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the grace of God and let God can do more in our life with a belief completely in God.

In our life, many people are trying everyday to look for peace and are willing to give up everything to get it. So what is peace? Peace is the simplicity of spirit, the serenity and tranquility of soul. Peace is when we live harmony in each one of us, when we have God in our life, our heart. To understand the importance of the development of Christian life is peace in our soul, we have to believe that all the good things we can do are come from God and only Him just gives us. So, what should we do to God’s peace can work freely in our life? Fr. Philippe said that: “to fully answer this question, we have to tell about prayer (meditation is  very basic in this field), sacraments, Eucharist, the light of Holy Spirit and peace in soul, through these ways which God's grace can work fully in our lives”. Morever, we have to learn to know ourselves in our weakness and to know God in His mercy. Sometimes, we hesitate to give our life entirely to God because we do not have believe that God will make us completely happy, so we try to seek happiness by ourselves and we makes ourselves sad and unhappy in the process. Jesus said: “Apart from Me, you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Yes, without God there is no real hope, no real peace, no real life, so we are invited to abandon ourselves to believe in God in every situation.

Morever, the Christian life must be viewed as a struggle to against evil, temptation and the sin to spend the space for peace. The evil is a mystery, a bad thing and will be forever so. Therefore, it is necessary for us to do what we can avoid it as well as reduce suffering; however, the evil is always present in our life. Therefore, we have to learn way to trust in God, put all our trust in Him in big as well as small things with a simple heart of the child. And then, God will show  His affection, His providence and His faithfulness in our life. Among the challenges, we can still experience the loving tenderness. It is not only spend to the saints, but also for all those who are poor and who believe that God is their Father. Entrusted certainly also requires renunciation, this is the hardest thing for us, but that is why we have to trust completely in the words of Jesus which is clear in the Gospel of Matthew (16:25): “For whoever wants to save their life  will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it”. This renunciation will make us feel so painful for a while but will be followed by a deep peace in our heart. Therefore, the right attitude is ready to offer everything to God without fear.

Sometimes, our mind become too blind by what is not smooth and we can not learn any lessons from our situations, especially when we do something wrong.  Therefore we have to be aware that our mistakes, our sins are the great opportunity to help us to be closer to God, grow in faith, love, more humility to ask God forgives our sins. God can let us lack money, health, ability and virtues, but he never let us lack His love, His assistance as well as His mercy or anything that can help us grow constantly to be close to Him, to love Him more and love others and reach holiness. According to saint Paul said that: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God”.

Fr. Philippe also gave us a new view about sufferings in our life. We have to accept the sufferings in this life and allow God show His’s will through it. We stop dreaming of a life without suffering or conflict. That is the life of heaven, not earth. We must take up our cross and follow Christ courageously every day; the bitterness of that cross will sooner or later become into sweetness. The suffering makes us grow in peace when we really understand God’s will in our sufferings. It trains us, purifies us, teaches us to love unselfishly, makes us poor in heart, humble, gentle, and compassionate toward our neighbor. If we fear of suffering, we will always feel unhappy and  not peaceful.

        Through this book, I can see my image who is always worried, try to do many thing by myself, have not had a strong faith in God, fear of suffering and don’t  be humbly to ask God’s forgiveness. Therefore, although I tried a lot, I still feel unceasingly worry about everything. I always tried to look for peace in God, but I never have really peace because there were many things in my mind, so I felt so hard to pay attention to pray or meditation to find peace in prayer. Morever, I was so easy to commit sin, sometimes I didn’t want to fight with temptation in my thought or couldn’t control my word, my action and did somethings wrong and hurt God or others. So, I need to review what made me not peaceful is vocation or study or community life or ambition or mammon ? What should I do to find peace in God?