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Jacques Philippe Biography

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“No circumstance in the world can ever prevent us from believing in God, from placing all our trust in him, from loving him with our whole heart, or from loving our neighbor. Faith, hope, and charity are absolutely free, because if they are rooted in us deeply enough, they are able to draw strength from whatever opposes them! If someone sought to prevent us from believing by persecuting us, we always would retain the option of forgiving our enemies and transforming the situation of oppression into one of greater love. If someone tried to silence our faith by killing us, our deaths would be the best possible proclamation of our faith! Love, and only love, can overcome evil by good and draw good out of evil.”

Freedom
Book:Interior Freedom
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“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.”

Freedom
Book:Interior Freedom
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“Para que nuestra voluntad sea fuerte y dispuesta, necesita verse alimentada por el deseo. Y ese deseo no puede ser poderoso si lo que se desea no se percibe como posible y accesible; porque, si nos representamos algo como inaccesible, dejamos de desearlo y quererlo con fuerza. No se puede querer nada de modo eficaz si psicológicamente tenemos la sensación de que «no llegaremos». Cuando la voluntad desfallece, para volver a despertarla se necesita una labor de «remodelación» de nuestras representaciones que nos permita percibir de nuevo lo que queremos como accesible y deseable.”

PsicologíaEsperanzaSuperaciónDeseoVoluntadCatólico
Book:Interior Freedom
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“No esperamos que Dios nos haga vivir en plenitud y creamos identidad artificial: el orgullo. O, entre personas de buena voluntad, nos gustaría amar, ser generosos y entregarnos, pero nos vemos atenazados por miedo, duda o intranquilidad. La falta de esperanza, confianza en lo que Dios puede obrar en nosotros y en lo que podemos hacer con su ayuda, trae como consecuencia un estrechamiento de corazón y mengua de la caridad.”

AmorDiosCorazónEsperanzaMiedoCatólicoCaridadVirtudes
Book:Interior Freedom
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“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.”

PeacePresence Of God
Book:Searching for and Maintaining Peace: A Small Treatise on Peace of Heart
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“A person who does not pray habitually, no matter how believing or pious he may be, will not achieve full spiritual growth. Neither will he acquire peace of soul because he will always experience excessive scruples and never view things beyond their human or worldly significance. Thus, one will always suffer from vanity, selfishness, self-centeredness, ambition, meanness of heart, vileness of judgment, and a sickly willfulness and attachment to one’s opinions. A person who does not pray may acquire human wisdom and prudence, but not true spiritual freedom or that deep and radical purification of the heart. One will not be able to grasp the depths of divine mercy or know how to make it known to others. His judgment will always end up shortsighted, mistaken, and contemptible. One will never be able to tread God’s ways, which are far different from what many—even those who have committed themselves to a life in the spirit—conceive them to be.”

WisdomFaithPeacePrayerSanctity
Book:Time for God
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