Peace in your soul only comes after an interior battle, according to St. Josemaria Escriva.
We all desire peace, especially a peace that endures within our hearts. However, peace always seems to elude us as the cares and anxiety of this world weigh us down.
If we truly want peace to remain in our soul, St. Josemaria Escriva advises us to remember this simple principle.
In his book entitled The Way, he explains succinctly what he believed was the key.
You write: “My joy and my peace. I will never have real happiness if I have not peace. And what is peace? Peace is something closely related to war. Peace is a consequence of victory. Peace demands of me a continual struggle. Without a struggle I will never have peace.”
We need only look to the examples of the saints to verify this reality. Lasting peace in this world will only be achieved through a denial of self and a struggle against temptations.
For this reason Escriva would continually encourage his spiritual children to persevere in their daily struggle and never let their guard down.
Persevere and you will “rise.” Remember what a spiritual writer has said: your poor soul is like a bird whose wings are caked with mud. Suns of heaven are needed and personal efforts, small and constant, to shake off those inclinations, those vain fancies, that depression: that mud clinging to your wings. And you will see yourself free. If you persevere, you will “rise.”
The saints should give us hope in this regard, reminding us that peace of soul is possible in this life. It was never easy and they often had to endure great trials to achieve it, but they did possess it.
Don’t lose heart, but struggle and keep struggling as you progress on the road to Eternal Life, where peace will have no end.