Searching for and Maintaining Peace

We live in an age characterized by agitation and lack of peace. This tendency manifests itself in our spiritual as well as our secular life. In our search for God and holiness, in our service to our neighbor, a kind of restlessness and anxiety take the place of the confidence and peace which ought to be ours. What must we do to overcome the moments of fear and distress which assail us? How can we learn to place all our confidence in God and abandon ourselves into his loving care? This is what is taught in this simple, yet profound little treatise on peace of head. Taking concrete examples from our everyday life, the author invites us to respond in a Gospel fashion to the upsetting situations we must all confront. Since peace of heart is a pure gift of God, it is something we should seek, pursue and ask him for without cease. This book is here to help us in that pursuit. Preface 1. Without Me, You Can Do Nothing 2. Interior Peace and Apostolic Fruitfulness 3. Peace and Spiritual Combat 4. Peace Is Often at Stake in the Struggle 5. The Reasons Why We Lose Our Peace Are Always Bad Reasons 6. Goodwill, a Necessary Condition for Peace 7. Goodwill: Sufficient Condition for Peace 1. The Troubles of Life and the Fear of Being Without 2. Our Difficulty in Believing in Providence 3. The Fear of Suffering 4. To Grow in Confidence: A Child’s Prayer 5. One Abandons Oneself Completely or Not at All 7. What to Do When You Are Unable to Abandon Yourself? 8. The Lord is My Shepherd, I Shall Not Want 10. In All People Who Suffer There is Jesus 11. The Faults and Shortcomings of Others 12. Patience Towards Others 13. Patience Vis-à-vis Our Own Faults and Imperfections 14. God Can Draw Good Even From Our Faults 15. What Should We Do When We Have Sinned? 16. Unrest When We Have Decisions to Make 17. The Royal Way of Love 18. Some Advice in the Guise of a Conclusion Juan de Bonilla Francis de Sales Teresa of Avila Marie of the Incarnation François-Marie-Jacob Libermann Padre Pio Part One: Interior Peace, The Road To Saintliness Part Two: How To React To That Which Causes Us To Lose Peace 6. God Asks For Everything, But He Doesn’t Necessarily Take Everything 9. Attitude When Confronted With the Suffering of Those Close to Us Part Three: What The Saints Tell Us