Tuesday, November 19, 2013

A photo with Fr. Jacques Philippe author of Searching for an Maintaining Peace.

Have you read Searching for and Maintaining Peace before? I was lucky and received a copy from my sister, Mary, about 5 years ago when I was first married. I liked it a lot and I have heard people talk about quite a bit about the book-it's become very popular. But that is the only book I have read by Father Philippe. 
  Well tonight, Blessed Sacrament hosted Father Jacques Philippe. He is here for a 3 day mission trip! He is speaking for 3 nights for one hour each night, yes it's in French and he did have a very good translator. He used to be a math teacher and he had some good jokes. He hit on three points tonight, and has 6 more to cover the next few days.  He spoke about calling down the Holy Spirit into our lives. His first point was reminding us about the Gospel passage Matthew 7:7, Ask and it will be given to you." He reminded us we will obtain what we ask for, we are told this in the Gospel. He also said we must ask for it as according to God's will. 
  Father Philippe said his second point was trust. Hearts that are anxious and busy from early in the morning to late at night, are more closed off to the work of the Holy Spirit, he mentioned St. Therese a lot and retold a parable St. Therese had made up in a letter to some missionary priests about God's love for us. The parable was about 2 boys who were into mischief and the father had to punish them. One ran and hid for fear and the other threw himself in his father's arms and asked for forgiveness, he asked to be punished with a kiss. Fr. Philippe said we must catch God by the heart just as the son caught his father by the heart. Even though the father knows his son will probably commit that act again and fall into sin again, he knows his son trusts in him as he asks for forgiveness. It's not that we have to be perfect God just wants us to trust in him.  
  Father Philippe's third point was the virtue of humility and how that draws down the Holy Spirit. Gratitude he said helps us grow in humility. He said we all have the need to be recognized so our lives have some worth. But what we take away from that is the bad stuff, we puff up our own pride. We need to be thankful not attribute to ourselves our own merit. On the way home my other two kids asked a lot of questions about the talk. They want to go back tomorrow but they say they want to listen. LOL that probably wont work out, but we might go back and they can go to the free day care again.
 So much could have been expanded on- you can tell by the bits he gave us how much more we could learn from him, but he kept us on track in the short hour we sat and listened, the Church was packed. I had my mom and 1 year old with me and the other two were in the free babysitting. I grabbed my book on the way out and was able to have Father Philippe sign it- and we got this photo too. What a great night! 

After the photo Fr. Philippe turned and blessed Brenden and I. This was the second time Brenden has been blessed by a such a holy man. We also met Father Andrew Apostoli of  the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal (EWTN host) back in August at the Midwest Catholic Family Conference. We stopped to speak with him about his homeschooling episode and thank him. He reached out and put his hands on Brenden and gave him a blessing! I think Brenden will enjoy hearing all this someday!

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