Father Jacques Philippe

Jan262023

The essence of prayer: LOVE

Prayer is a privileged place for love to be exercised, and hence deepened and purified. It is a marvelously effective school of love. It is a school of patience, faithfulness, humility, and trust, and these attitudes are the most genuine expressions of true love. Prayer is a school of love of God, love of our neighbor and also (not least importantly) charity toward our own selves.

In seeking to situate love’s place in the prayer life one might say it is the goal of prayer and also that, together with faith and hope, it is the main means to prayer. That may seem like a paradox, but it applies to many things in the dynamism of the spiritual life. The movements of the soul are circular, says Pseudo-Dionysius, a sixth-century Greek father.

St. Teresa of Avila insists on this point in her teachings on prayer. It is not a question of thinking a lot but of loving a lot. Just as well, she adds, because not all souls are gifted with imagination, but all are gifted with the power to love. –Father Jacques Philippe ‘Thirsting For Prayer’

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Jan252023

Acceptance

The highest and most fruitful form of human freedom is found in accepting, even more than in dominating. We show the greatness of our freedom when we transform reality, but still more when we accept it trustingly as it is given to us day after day. It is natural and easy to go along with pleasant situations that arise without our choosing them. It becomes a problem, obviously, when things are unpleasant, go against us, or make us suffer. But it is precisely then that, in order to become truly free, we are often called to choose to accept what we did not want, and even what we would not have wanted at any price. There is a paradoxical law of human life here: one cannot become truly free unless one accepts not always being free! To achieve true interior freedom we must train ourselves to accept, peacefully and willingly, plenty of things that seem to contradict our freedom. This means consenting to our personal limitations, our weaknesses, our powerlessness, this or that situation that life imposes on us, and so on. We find it difficult to do this, because we feel a natural revulsion for situations we cannot control. But the fact is that the situations that really make us grow are precisely those we do not control.

Jacques Philippe, Interior Freedom

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Jan182023

The Wellspring

That is how it is for us. Faithfulness to prayer involves a painful confrontation with what we have in our hearts. There we find things that weigh us down, tangled things, dirty things. But the day comes when, deeper down than our psychological wounds, even deeper than our sins and dirt, we reach a pure spring, the presence of God in the depths of our hearts, enabling our whole selves to be purified and renewed. “He who believes in me, out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water (John 7:38). Human beings are not purified from the outside inwards, but starting from within. Not so much by a moral effort we make, but by discovering a Presence within us and letting him act freely.

By faithfulness to prayer, we find within us a space of purity, peace, and freedom, God’s presence, closer to us than we are to ourselves. The center of the soul is God, says St. John of the Cross. We learn little by little to center our lives on him, and no longer on our wounded psychological periphery-our fears, bitterness, aggressiveness, jealousies, etc.

This kind of interiorization, which is one of the fruits of prayer, is much more than simply recollecting ourselves. It is discovering and uniting ourselves to an inner Presence that becomes our life and the source of all our thoughts and actions.  –Father Jacques Philippe ‘Thirsting For Prayer’

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Jul132021

Presumption of the purser

When we are powerless,
Let us be quiet,
And let God act.

Therefore, be patient, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. Think of the farmer: how he waits for the precious yield of the earth, patiently waiting until it receives the early and late rains! (James 5:7).

Father Jacques Philippe “Searching for and Maintaining Peace”

But as Judas found little support in his natural disposition, and as the disciples, not being as yet confirmed in virtue and not as yet even in grace, were guilty of some human failings, the imprudent man began to compliment himself on his perfection and to take more notice of the faults of his brethren than of his own (Luke 4, 41). He permitted himself thus to be deceived, making no effort to amend or repent, he allowed the beam in his own eyes to grow while watching the splinters in the eyes of others. Complaining of their little faults and seeking, with more presumption than zeal, to correct the weaknesses of his brethren, he committed greater sins himself. Among the other Apostles he singled out saint John, looking upon him as an inter-meddler and accusing him in his heart of ingratiating himself with the Master and his blessed Mother. The fact that he received so many special favors from Them was of no avail to deter him from this false assumption. Yet so far Judas had committed only venial sins and had not lost sanctifying grace. But they argued a very bad disposition, in which he willfully persevered. He had freely entertained a certain vain complacency in himself; this at once called into existence a certain amount of envy, which brought on a calumnious spirit and harshness in judging of the faults of his brethren. These sins opened the way for greater sins; for immediately the fervor of his devotion decreased, his charity toward God and men grew cold, and his interior light was lost and extinguished; he began to look upon the Apostles and upon the most holy Mother with a certain disgust and find little pleasure in their intercourse and their heavenly activity. The most prudent Lady perceived the growth of this defection in Judas. Eagerly seeking his recovery and salvation before he should cast himself entirely into the death of sin, she spoke to him and exhorted him as her beloved child and with extreme sweetness and force
of reasoning………

Judas pleading with Jesus to be appointed the tender of the group’s purse.

In order that Judas might not excuse himself under plea of ignorance, the Lord answered him: “Dost thou know, Judas, what thou seekest and what thou askest? Be not so cruel toward thy own self as to solicit and seek to obtain the poison and the arms which may cause thy death.” Judas replied: “Master I desire to serve Thee by employing my strength in the service of thy faithful followers and in this way I can do it better than in any other; for I offer to fulfill all the duties of this office without fail.” This daring presumption of Judas in seeking and coveting danger, justified the cause of God in allowing him to enter and perish in the danger thus sought and coveted. He resisted the light (Eccli. 15, 17), and hardened himself against it, water and fire was shown him, life and death: he stretched forth his hand and chose perdition.  –“Mystical City of God” Sister Mary of Agreda.

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Jul102021

The Real Life

I have the feeling, according to Rimbaud’s expression, that “the real life is elsewhere,” elsewhere than in the life that is mine. And that the latter is not a real life, that it doesn’t offer me the conditions for real spiritual growth because of certain sufferances or limitations. I am concentrated on the negatives of my situation, on that which I lack in order to be happy. This renders me unhappy, envious and discouraged and I am unable to go forward. The real life is elsewhere, I tell myself, and I simply forget to live. Oftentimes it would take so little for everything to be different and for me to progress with giant steps: a different outlook, a view of my situation which is one of confidence and hope (based on the certitude that I will lack nothing). And then doors would open to me of unhoped–for possibilities for spiritual growth.

We often live with this illusion. With the impression that all would go better, we would like the things around us to change, that the circumstances would change. But this is often an error. It is not the exterior circumstances that must change; it is above all our hearts that must change. They must be purified of their withdrawal into themselves, of their sadness, of their lack of hope: Happy are the pure in heart; they shall see God (Matthew 5:8). Happy are those whose hearts are purified by faith and hope, who bring to their lives a view animated by the certitude that, beyond appearances to the contrary, God is present, providing for their essential needs and that they lack nothing. If they have that faith, they will indeed see God: they will experience that presence of God which will accompany them and guide them. They will see that many of the circumstances that they thought negative and damaging to their spiritual life are, in fact, in God’s pedagogy, powerful means for helping them to progress and grow. Saint John of the Cross says that “it is very often the case that just when the soul believes itself lost that it gains and profits most.” This is very true.  –Father Jacques Philippe ‘Searching For and Maintaining Peace”

I (Virgin Mary, Queen of Heaven in Waiting) asked him to make me his (her son, Jesus) companion and partaker of all his sorrows, sufferings and torments, which request the eternal Father granted. Then in order to begin following in the footsteps of his bitterness, I besought my Son and Lord to deprive me of interior delights; and this petition was inspired in me by the Lord himself, because He wished it so, and because my own love taught me and urged me thereto. This desire for suffering and the wishes of my divine Son led me on in the way of suffering. He himself, because He loved me so tenderly, granted me my desires; for those whom He loves, He chastises and afflicts (Prov. 3, 12). I as his Mother was not to be deprived of this blessed distinction of being entirely like unto Him, which alone makes this life most estimable. Immediately this will of the Most High, this my earnest petition, began to be fulfilled: I began to feel the want of his delightful caresses and He began to treat me with greater reserve. That was one of the reasons, why He did not call me Mother, but Woman, at the marriage-feast at Cana and at the foot of the Cross (John 2, 4, 19, 26); and also on other occasions, when He abstained from words of tenderness. So far was this from being a sign of a diminution of his love, that it was rather an exquisite refinement of his affection to assimilate me to Him in the sufferings which He chose for Himself as his precious treasure and inheritance.

Hence thou wilt understand the ignorance and error of mortals, and how far they drift from the way of light, when, as a rule, nearly all of them strive to avoid labor and suffering and are frightened by the royal and secure road of mortification and the Cross. Full of this deceitful ignorance, they do not only abhor resemblance to Christ’s suffering and my own, and deprive themselves of the true and highest blessing of this life; but they make their recovery impossible, since all of them are weak and afflicted by many sins, for which the only remedy is suffering. Sin is committed by base indulgence and is repugnant to suffering sorrow, while tribulation earns the pardon of the just judge. By the bitterness of sorrow and affliction the vapors of sin are allayed; the excesses of the concupiscible and irascible passions are crushed; pride and haughtiness are humiliated; the flesh is subdued; the inclination to evil, to the sensible and earthly creatures, is repressed; the judgment is cleared; the will is brought within bounds and it’s desultory movements at the call of the passions, are corrected; and, above all, divine love and pity are drawn down upon the afflicted, who embrace suffering with patience, or who seek it to imitate my most holy Son. In this science of suffering are renewed all the blessed riches of the creatures; those that fly from them are insane, those that know nothing of this science are foolish. –Our Holy Mother speaking to Sister Mary of Agreda, “The Mystical City of God”.

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Jul012021

What is goodwill?

…virtues. Whoever has goodwill, the sincere desire to obtain My glory, to be thankful to Me, to share in My suffering, to love Me and serve Me, as well as all creatures, such a person will undoubtedly receive compensations that are worthy of My generosity and his desire will sometimes be more profitable to him than other peoples’ good works are to them.’

“Very contented with these good words,” Céline continued, “which were all to my advantage, I shared them with our dear little mistress (Thérèse),” who did her one better and added:

“Have you read what is reported regarding the life of Father Surin? He was performing an exorcism and the demons said to him: “We are able to surmount all difficulties; there is only this bloody dog of goodwill, which we are never able to deal with!” Well, if you don’t have virtue, you have a “bloody little dog,” which will save you from all perils; console yourself, it will lead you to paradise! Ah! Which is the heart that would not wish to possess virtue! It’s what everybody desires. But how few are those who accept to fall, to be weak, who are content to find themselves down and out and have others find them in that condition!” Father Jacques Philippe: ‘Searching For and Maintaining Peace”

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