By Ryan LeBlanc
We may already know in our hearts what “spiritual depth” is – whether we call it “inner peace” or a “state of grace” or a “restful, contemplative spirit” – and we may also know how important it is to have it.
Maybe it is most important to spend some time pondering how we might arrive at this depth.
If I were the one reading at length about the goodness and value of spiritual depth, I would take the opportunity to express some frustration in the question, “So how do I actually get some of this spiritual depth?!”
Be at peace, I tell myself. Here is how.
My first obstacle to existing in a deep state of peace is my mind.
It feels like the chaos and distraction of the world swirling around me is blocking my way to greater spiritual depth.
The reality is, nothing in the world actually has the power to disturb the true peace of Jesus Christ unless we give over this power by attaching ourselves to worldly things.
In fact, even our frail and fallen tendencies to these attachments have no lasting power to disturb our peace. In the end, God will bring us to himself.
This is because the spiritual depth which nurtures and protects the life of our soul flows straight from the source of all true and lasting peace, Jesus Christ.
If I were to attempt to summarize every thought and teaching which the Bible and the Church offers to our restless, falsely attached, spiritually shallow minds, it is this: all the reasons that cause us to lose our sense of peace are bad reasons.
We are entirely dependent on Christ Jesus – we can do nothing without him in our lives, present in this moment with us. He did not say, “You can’t do much,” but “You can do nothing” without him (John15:5)*.
Christ wants our peace, wants our healing, wants to immerse us in his spiritual depth. The entire New Testament witnesses to this.
Christ can do all things. He already is doing everything for us. Nothing can overpower him, nothing can confound his power.
And so, dear reader, blessed and beloved sibling of God, all those reasons which cause you to lose your sense of peace – your fears, your attachments, your fixations and obsessions and regrets, even those good things in your life which you fret over – they are all bad reasons. Or to say it another way, they are – all of them – no reason at all to lose a deep and abiding peace that flows through your soul from its roots to its blossoms. This is every teaching of the Messiah and the Apostles.
When I read this teaching, this was my response (it might be yours also): a shocked disbelief. “What do you mean – no good reasons? Don’t you know how big my problems are? How bad global politics is? How wayward my children are? How low my bank balance is? How toxic my relationships are? How painful my sciatica is? How …. ?”
These are all thoughts about difficult trials, many of which are beyond our power to resolve. But the thoughts themselves, these are the agitation and disturbance which drains our spirit. These kinds of thoughts arise from our insistence on self-reliance, our doubt of God’s goodness and power, and even the sneaky tricks of the devil, our accuser.
We do, in fact, have the power to receive peace and abide in it, even in the midst of trials.
We have been given this power in the name of Jesus, whose shed blood and glorious resurrection teach us that we have nothing to worry about, that nothing in the world can come between us and him.
As long as our minds keep grinding out objections and obstacles to abiding in Christ’s peace, we need to return to the Bible and the Church to hear the same teaching, again and again, reaching us where we are at: all the reasons to lose our peace are bad reasons.
These thoughts of mine arise from reading of a little helpful book called Searching for and Maintaining Peace by Jacques Philippe, available by order through Universal Church Supplies in Saskatoon.
All the mindful arguments to trust in Christ’s promises are not the peace, the spiritual depth, that we seek. God’s revealed wisdom allows us to align our thoughts with his truth, but our peace does not abide in something so fragile as our capacity to think rightly.
In the end, there is only one obstacle that drives our minds to the restless frenzy to save ourselves: it is in our heart’s refusal to trust in God’s salvation.
Once we understand Jesus as the Word of God who calms storms, heals disease and casts out evil, it only remains for us to choose to rest in him, to grow in confidence in his goodness.
I cannot find better words to express this attachment to the source of spiritual depth than a contemplative gaze on Jesus. It is only in turning our heart towards Christ’s love that we can experience the depth of care that he has for us.
Because we are so busy, because we are so distracted and fretful, we must place ourselves in his lap with enough stillness and for enough time for our hearts to drink in his gift of himself.
Because he loves us, because he will never violate our freedom, he will only pour as much of himself as we welcome into our heart. After all, it takes time for us to open up to as much love as God is.
He really meant it: we must trust him as a little child trusts (Matt. 18:3).
Time in personal, quiet, contemplative prayer is absolutely necessary to nurture spiritual depth in our souls, not because we have to go find where God is, but so that we can let God find us where we are!
When a newborn nurses, her eyes are only able to focus on the image the same distance as her mother’s face. In this most vulnerable state, each of us learns the gaze of the one who loves us and shares her very body to feed us. As we begin our earthly life contemplating the goodness and peace with which our bodies grow, so too we might begin our heavenly life in the contemplation of our Saviour’s gaze if we desire God with only a tiny fraction of his desire for us.
This, blessed and beloved reader, is how we grow in spiritual depth.
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Ryan LeBlanc is a teacher at Bethlehem Catholic High School in Saskatoon and a parishioner at the Cathedral of the Holy Family. His writing is available on his blog at https://ryanleblanc.podia.com/
Catholic Saskatoon News is supported by gifts to the Bishop’s Annual Appeal: dscf.ca.