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What is peace in the heart?

I know one thing it is not. It is not an absence of bad things happening to us, such as suffering, conflict, betrayals, misunderstandings, and the whole gamut of woes that are part and parcel of life. If true peace depended on the absence of such things, then true peace would be unobtainable in this life, because few among us, if any, go through life without some element of suffering and woundedness. In fact, for those who live in love, pain and suffering are never far away, simply because to love others is to make yourself vulnerable.

So, if peace in the heart is not acquired by an absence of bad things (and was simply a result of a life of contentment and self-centred ease) just how is it possibly attainable for good folk, and is it in any way something that we can aspire to in this life?

The message of Jesus’ Gospel of Good News is yes, true peace in the heart is attainable, and attainable here and now. If it were not then it would be quite valueless for us – mere pie in the sky. God’s gift of peace – it is His gift – is precisely for here and now, in the midst of our real lives of joy and sorrow. How so? It seems contradictory.

The simple answer is that peace in the heart is based, not on an easy life, but in trust in God. It’s as simple and as difficult as that. Easy to put into words, not so easy to embody in daily life.

Those of us who are Christians may feel that we already trust God – after all, we pray, go to church, do our best to love one another, etc, etc. That’s wonderful, but if I say peace comes through trusting in God, then the acid test of our trust is precisely when things are dark and difficult. We can easily fool ourselves that we are truly trusting God when everything is great, but how deep is that trust and will it endure when things go wrong?

Many years ago, I preached on peace and afterwards a woman came up to me, blazing angry! When she cooled down she explained that her son was in the British army and had just been posted to Northern Ireland, which at that time was a very dangerous place for a British soldier. How could I talk about peace when she was frantic with worry? We prayed together and I tried to explain to her that peace was still possible for her, but she had to really put her trust in God. She had to trust that no matter what happened to her son, even injury and death, God would not lose him. She had to believe in God’s promise that nothing in this life, not even death, can separate us and our loved ones from His love. For God was not about to promise that her son would be kept safe but He did promise never to abandon or lose her son. As much as she loved her son, God loved him even more.

She came back a few days later and said that she began to understand but it was so very hard, and yet some degree of peace was already growing in her heart.

We’re not playing at games here, and neither is God. Life can be hard and God doesn’t promise to spare us from suffering, but He does promise to be with us with all the grace we need to endure. The secular world has nothing to offer – it can only suggest we avoid trouble – that is not peace! God’s gift of peace is of an entirely different order – Jesus is quite clear on this (John 14: 27).

Two very practical suggestions for gaining true peace in the heart!

~ pray every day with sincerity the beautiful prayer of Cardinal Mercier:

Oh, Holy Spirit, beloved of my soul – I adore you. Enlighten me, guide me, strengthen me, console me. Tell me what I should do; give me your orders. I promise to submit myself to all that you desire of me and to accept all that you permit to happen to me. Let me only know your will.

~ take St Paul’s advice to the Philippians to heart (4: 6 – 7):

do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

I have emphasised two phrases:

~ accept all that [God] will permit to happen to me;

~ with thanksgiving.

Yes, God must permit even bad things to happen to us in this life, but that doesn’t mean our peace can be shattered if we keep trust in His purpose and faithfulness.

And thanksgiving – if you can thank God in all things, then you really are a person who trusts in Him, and His peace is yours for the taking,

Martin

Imagine the following scenario. A baby in a pram is being taken for a walk. Suddenly two cars pull up – a gangland feud – and shots are fired. A stray bullet kills the baby.

What are we to make of this awful tragedy? What especially can we meaningfully say about God in this situation? Was God there? Did He care? What did He do, if anything?

These may seem like pointless questions, and certainly for the shattered parents and family there are no answers. Moreover, thoughts of God may well bring anger and bitterness. As for words in general – words fall far short in the midst of grief. But can we try and make any sense of a senseless situation? Is there any healing? Is that baby, a unique person, gone from all existence?

In an earlier blog on the problem of suffering and a loving God, I stated that – in this life – God is impotent by choice. In other words, His key priority is to honour and maintain our freedom, and to do so He must stand back. Even more than stand back, He must begone and never interfere! So if I hold a gun to another’s head, and supposing God intervenes and takes the gun from me – then my freedom is compromised. The other guy may be saved from death or injury but something fundamental would have happened to my life and I, and all of us, would be little more than created robots, programmed to do God’s will in all things. This is a hard truth and there’s no getting round it: God cannot pull strings if we are to be free, free to choose good or evil.

In this life – but not in the world to come, the eternal life – God has to allow even bad things to happen. As I write this, Russia is waging war in Ukraine, and the suffering is obscene: indiscriminate death and injury, widespread destruction, families torn apart, wondering if they will see each other again – there are no adequate words to encapsulate the enormity of such suffering. Given the scale of such suffering, surely God might do something? How about a fatal heart attack on one of the key movers in this tragedy? That might change the dynamic and lead to an end to the war? Come on God, think of the benefits… But no, no discernable action on His part, no compromises on our freedom, no divine collusion.

Is God then heedless? Uncaring? Immune to human suffering? Too far above to be touched by our dramas? Did He kick start Creation and then left us to it, for better for worse? No wonder some people have conceived of a God who is little more than a cynical voyeur, sitting on high and enjoying the entertainment as His creatures bicker and fight.

Yet God still stands mute. In my poem God in the Dock, I wrote:

The case for the prosecution mounts:

Let the accused stand in the dock!

What blasphemy is this? Who are we

To call the shepherd to face His flock?

Can the creature demand that his Creator answer the charge? Where were You when the child was killed? Did You care?

I think one of the greatest compliments we can give to God is to be angry with Him. That may sound counter-intuitive but God Himself says: “I wish you were either hot or cold, but you are lukewarm! So I spit you out of my mouth!” (Revelation 3: 16) Strong words from God in scripture, suggesting that He would actually prefer us to be ‘cold’, as in, against Him, rather than being uninvolved or not passionate one way or the other. To be angry with Him is in fact to be engaged with Him!

To the question: does God intervene in human life, we must therefore say a fundamental no He does not. To ensure our radical gift of freedom He must begone from our midst, He must never pull strings, He must maintain an apparent silence (although He does speak in very many subtle ways). He simply must allow bad things when they happen.

One important exception: if any single person opens their heart and life to God’s will, then God can and does act through that person’s freely chosen stance. The individual’s freedom is not compromised and God can influence matters.

For our part, when terrible things happen, when suffering hits us, it is appropriate that we respond with honest questions of Him and yes, even anger against Him. He will bring all things together for those who love Him, and that means those who bother with Him. In His time, in His way. No easy answers, let’s be honest,

Martin

There are I think many kinds of religion. I’m talking here about quality more so than type, type as in denomination, creed, tradition and culture. Let me be straight: the quality of religion in our world today ranges from authentic and mature to false and downright dangerous.

Dangerous, you say? Yes, dangerous. And false. Any divine creed that espouses killing and vilifying others is quite simply wrong and… dangerous. And let’s be honest, religion has many times been pro-active in sponsoring wars and bloodshed across the centuries. Supposedly honouring its founder’s teachings but in practice doing the opposite. Operating from a base of hate rather than love, of an exclusive tribe rather than an inclusive and outreaching community.

And the quality of religion is both on the collective level and the individual level. Even within my own Catholic Church there are those who long for a return to the old sin-centric, negative and fear based teachings, those who support dangerous and divisive political leaders and ideologies, and who would gladly see the undoing of all the spiritual renewals arising from the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. There are even some extreme Catholic groups who regard the present pope, dear good Pope Francis, as heretical and a ‘false pope’ – mainly because of his teachings on compassion and outreach to the poor and the marginalised! And let’s not forget those individuals who can seemingly combine a faith in God and a spiritual ministry with child abuse…

What then do we mean by ‘mature religion’? I can do no better than to quote from Richard Rohr OFM, whom I regard as a modern day prophet and a voice of rare sanity and sanctity in today’s world, and who by the way is often vilified by the reactionary and traditionalist elements within the Catholic Church. Richard writes:

“The true purpose of mature religion is to lead you to ever new experiences of your True Self. If religion does not do this, it is junk religion. Every sacrament, every Bible story, every church service, every sermon, every hymn, every bit of priesthood, ministry, or liturgy is for one purpose: to allow you to experience your True Self—who you are in God and who God is in you—and to live a generous life from that Infinite Source.“

For Rohr, the True Self is that inner core of our being where God resides, where God is both delighted to be and also by being there gives life to our being. The True Self is of course usually hidden and distorted by the events of our upbringing: the wounds, the prejudices, the fears, the lack of understandings, the lack of love and affection, even the cruelty that many of us suffer. For Rohr, the key job of religion, perhaps the only really vital job of religion, is to enable us to discover our True Self, and by doing so, liberate our innate ability to love and be loved. For Rohr, God resides in every single human person – period. If that were not so, then we would not be.

The acid test of all religious practice is then quite simply, does it foster the authentic and true Self? Does it promote our ability to love and be loved? All the bells and smells, the worthy sermons and prayers, the diverse and long standing rituals and doctrines, all of these are pointless if they do not encourage us as individuals and communities to be more loving, more open, more joyful and fear-free.

If any one of us honestly feels that their ‘church’ is failing in this, perhaps failing quite badly, then I think there is a blunt choice: either to abandon that brand of religion or to work harder to renew it into the image of a mature church. Being lukewarm is to collude in mediocrity, or worse.

As Richard Rohr says: “As disappointed as I get with religion, I can’t give up on it.”

God is with us and in us!

Martin

I think the most tragic line in the entire Bible is in Genesis 3: 8.

In the story of Adam and Eve, when they had both sinned, we’re told that God Himself, as He was wont to do, came into the beautiful garden later that same day. And what did Adam and Eve do? They hid from Him. In their guilt and their shame, they hid from the very One who was their Creator and their Life, their best friend, the One who loved them most of all. They hid from the only One who could heal the wound of their sin. And thus they compounded the damage of their sin by refusing to face up to it and find the sole remedy. They felt guilt and shame, but failed to respond in a positive manner. And so they lost paradise.

The story of Adam and Eve is of course an archetype: it symbolises something fundamental in human nature and in our relationship with God. That’s after all why it is in the Bible: to help us to understand one of the most abiding and profound issues in life.

We can understand sin as doing wrong things but also failing to do right things. When we are aware of our sin we should ordinarily feel shame and guilt. However that doesn’t always follow, as we can be very good at denial, at suppressing the consequences of our deeds. We can be very adept at rationalising and even justifying our conduct. I think it was Kierkegaard who said that people don’t do right or wrong so much as take up a position. And that position or attitude can then justify what we do. For example, we may justify killing a man because the one we killed was the enemy in a time of war. And the fanatic can so easily justify abhorrent deeds because of his or her extreme viewpoints. This justifying can be both on an individual and a collective level.

If however we presume for the purposes of this article that we are aware of our sin, it is healthy to feel guilt for sin, though even here our guilt should be proportionate: sometimes we can agonise over something quite trivial and yet ignore something far worse. Excess guilt can be crippling and is closely related to scrupulosity which is one of the most intractable psychological illnesses, especially when combined with religious faith.

So we may say that guilt is positive when it is proportionate to the wrong-doing (or the failure to do good), and when it leads us to feel an appropriate remorse. That remorse can then naturally move us towards seeking forgiveness, reconciliation and any acts of reparation. So finding the proper remedy for sin is not a straightforward matter and perhaps is one reason why so much suffering and evil persists in our world. In the Catholic tradition this is acknowledged and celebrated by a proper preparation for sacramental absolution and reconciliation, through a form of examination of conscience. We literally take the time to discern the true state of our heart. Or as the Greek philosophers would put it: know thyself.

This brings me back to the sad notion of ‘hiding from God’. In our sinfulness we can be like the alcoholic who, having drunk himself or herself into a dark place, then feels shame and self-loathing, and this compounds their guilt and can often lead… to another drink to suppress the emotional pain – and a vicious circle is enacted. The alcoholic desperately needs to hear and experience themselves as precious and lovable if they are to have any chance of breaking that cycle.

We all of us sin – period. What really matters is finding the remedy and a new beginning. Faith in a loving God is the true gateway to that wonderful liberation and salvation. Only when we bask in the unconditional love of God for us can we really open the eyes of our soul to the true darkness within, neither denying nor inflating nor minimising the severity of what we have done and failed to do. And with a true perspective we can find mercy and even show mercy.

God is always ‘coming into our garden’, always waiting for us to recognise His healing presence. Only when we refuse to run and hide but rather open up, warts and all, to the One who truly loves us and gives us infinite worth – only then can we find healing, peace and joy. No matter how bad you think your sin is – never hide from Him!

Peace and joy,

Martin

Most folk, even smokers, would agree that smoking is injurious to one’s health. Prolonged heavy smoking risks lung cancer and divers other ailments, and overall is highly likely to result in a physically limited life and indeed to shorten one’s life. As the old saying goes: if God had meant us to smoke He would have put a chimney in our heads…

No one in their right mind would put their hand into an open fire. Human tissue and fire are not meant to come into contact with each other.

Both these assertions are simply obvious and come under what we can call the ‘natural law’, that is, laws deriving from the observation of natural phenomena.

I think it is demonstrable that we can also state that “human nature finds its fulfilment in love”. We come from love, we live in love, and we will find our destiny in love. To deny that, it seems to me, is to deny our very essence.

The antithesis of this is simply that hate, the opposite of love, impedes our fulfilment and is therefore injurious to our being. We might say that prolonged and intense hatred damages our spiritual, mental and emotional selves (even physical selves…?), in a similar way to how prolonged and heavy smoking damages our vital tissues. Ultimately hate is self destructive – a mantra for losers.

Yet we may feel that hate is thriving in our world today: hatred of others, of doctrines and ideologies, of groups, tribes, races and nations. Hatred even of self.

Hate may be self destructive but it can provide a powerful motivation, as well as give group identity (“them and us”) and a corresponding sense of belonging. It can make of use of all manner of otherwise neutral things like football, religion and ethnic identity to demarcate, caricature and alienate the “others”.

If we think of subject and object, where the subject is the one who hates, and the object is the one being hated, then we can say that often the object is hurt when the subject acts on their hatred, but one thing is clear: the subject is always hurt, whether they realise it or not. Hate is always self destructive because it is contrary to our true nature.

Take for example a lynch mob – the mob may well be impassioned, unstoppable and, on the face of it, joyous in what they do to their victim, but afterwards they cannot individually escape that inner voice condemning them. They may shut it out, with slogans, with get-togethers, with fanatical beliefs, with alcohol or other drugs, but only the most amoral and already soul-damaged individuals would sleep soundly. They cannot know peace. Continued denial of wrong-doing is not peace. Their hearts are diseased. Shrivelled.

When it comes to hate, the object of the hate may well get hurt, but the subject, the one doing the hating is always hurt. Hate is a dead end – a creed for losers.

I would add to this that it is not enough to stop hating. If we really want to know joy and peace, and to experience healing for past wounds, especially self inflicted wounds, we need to pro-actively love, and that includes repairing past damage. Jesus went so far as to say: “Love your enemies”!

We could define love and hatred of others as follows:

hate – always wanting the worst outcome for them;

love – always wanting the best outcome for them.

If there is someone you hate, someone who has perhaps hurt you badly – just decide to stop hating them! You may never get to like them – that isn’t the issue – but for God’s sake take that weight of hatred off your soul!

To the degree that each one of us decides to stop hating and to replace hatred with love, to that degree we can stop the ripples of hate from traversing our world. The antidote to evil and injustice is not violence but love. Jesus not only spoke love, He lived it to the cross.

Peace and joy to you today,

Martin