Opening Prayer
Lord, I confess the tortuous ways I have walked, attempting to find rest in created things while abandoning the one who made me for Himself. I recognize that my heart is restless until it finds its rest in You, for You alone are my tranquility and my home. Deliver me from my wretched wanderings and settle me in Your own way, for Your wisdom is infinite.
I petition for The Heart Rested in Your goodness alone, refusing to toss and turn upon the hard beds of worldly ambition. Let my soul hold fast to You in its thoughts, taking refuge from the world even as I perform my daily duties. I run to You, Lord, trusting that You will carry me to the end of my journey and settle me in Your eternal peace.
Amen.
Matthew 23:27-32
27Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you are like to whited sepulchres, which outwardly appear to men beautiful, but within are full of dead men’s bones, and of all filthiness. 28So you also outwardly indeed appear to men just; but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. 29Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; that build the sepulchres of the prophets, and adorn the monuments of the just, 30And say: If we had been in the days of our Fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. 31Wherefore you are witnesses against yourselves, that you are the sons of them that killed the prophets. 32Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers.
St. Augustine
St. Augustine often talks about the “Abyss of Love“. He compares the beauty outside myself from beauty within. Augustine’s narrative is the clinical “restlessness” that finds true Rest only in God. The Gospel “Whitewashed tombs” was his critique of his own Manichean past. He differentiates feeble reason from Inaccessible Light. The spiritual paper cuts of intellectual pride are healed by renouncing myself. Augustine reminds us that all the abundance I have that is not my God is only poverty. We must stretch our soul to be filled with “Something beyond words”.
A sharp contrast exists between the “Spirit of Jesus” and the “spirit of the world,” which often mocks the voice of truth. We must remain “stable and steadfast” in the hope of the Gospel, refusing to let the world’s false promises lead us astray. To live as a citizen of heaven is to remain unmoved by the “unreal pleasures” that seek to separate us from God.
“You’ve made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you… you alone are my rest.”
— St. Augustine
Mary and the Magisterium
Augustine famously taught that our hearts are restless until they find rest in God. Mary is the perfect model of the rested heart, having found her home entirely within the will of the Father.
- Is my soul "restless" because I am seeking rest in "created things"?
- How can I "clean the inside of my cup" (the Gospel) through "most intense devotion"?
Closing Prayer
Our hearts are restless, O Lord, until they rest in You.
Amen.
