Inner Peace

My son was telling me about a boy in his Religous Education Class. “Dad, I think there’s something wrong with him. When he talks, he stutters. It takes him a long time to get the words out. He says something like ‘Y-y-y-y-ou d-d-d-d-on’t have t-t-t-t-to read the B-b-b-b-b-ile to go to heaven. All y-y-y-y-ou have t-t-t-t-o do is b-b-b-be good..” I said, “Ya, it does sound like he struggles a bit with his speech.” But I was more struck by what the boy said, and less about how he said it. It seems saying what he did say was a bit advanced for a 10-year-old. It sounds more like he heard that from someone older than him, maybe an adult.

I used to think that way. Then, a few new friends of mine became “born-again” Christians. I fought it with all my heart and soul. I used to tell them, look, I don’t mind going hiking with you or playing basketball or whatever, but don’t preach to me. I guess I thought I had a better way to have “inner peace.” After all, isn’t inner peace what we are all really after?
Don’t we seek to be confident in ourselves and have high self-esteem? Don’t we seek to feel better about ourselves after we fail or are hurt by someone we least expect, or when tragedy strikes? Don’t we look for signs that someone cares about us?

Many of us try to find inner peace in the things we do and think about. We try to shy away from things that take too much commitment and responsibility. We have enough of that in our day-to-day lives, with school, and work, and all. But our inner peace is always challenged. Always. What happens when our inner peace is challenged? We turn to the things that we feel most comfortable with. Most of the time the wrong things: withdrawal, self-pity, lower self-esteem, lack of confidence, and fear to name a few. Mostly fear. How do most of us express fear? Through anger. Think about it.

Ever notice how your parents react when you do something that they think might lead to you harming yourself? They get mad! They yell, they scream, they shout. I also get angry when I feel that I am losing control. A man named Neale Donald Walsch in a book called Conversations With God says “anger is fear announced.” How true is that? And all of this can lead to the lack of inner peace.

We’ve heard many people this weekend talk about how they lost their inner peace. All of us have gone through the same problems that we’ve heard each of these folks talk about. Maybe not precisely the same problems. But it’s all the same thing – fear. Fear of what? Fear of rejection and fear of failure.

You’ve also have heard many people talk about how they rediscovered inner peace through their faith in God and His son Jesus. Having inner peace doesn’t mean that nothing ever goes wrong or that nothing bad ever happens. There are no guarantees, right? But what it does mean is how prepared are we to handle things that go wrong or things that go bad; how quickly we can bounce back; how quickly we can set aside the raw emotion that first comes out when something goes wrong, move beyond it, ask and seek for forgiveness and move to that great feeling of inner peace.

One of the reasons I enjoy being a Catholic Christian as opposed to other types of Christians, is that we as Catholics have a very special thing going here. That is the Sacraments. Sacraments are a means in which we receive God’s grace. And God’s grace is like the source of inner peace. And for me, the sacrament where I can get the most inner peace believe it or not, is through the Eucharist – Holy Communion. I wish I could find a way to receive communion every day – it means that much to me. It is nourishing. It helps me feel more confident in myself. It helps give me higher self-esteem. It helps me get that inner peace – like the inner peace you have when you first wake up in the morning after sleeping the night through and feeling totally rested. How often does that happen, sleeping through the night and feeling totally rested when you wake up? Not often enough for me anyways. So, through the Sacraments, God provides a little jump start, a little jolt to keep that inner peace going. Check it out.