“Scars tell a story. Your scars tell a story. My scars tell a story.”

There are different kinds of scars. Some are physical, visible scars. Others are scars that no one sees.

What are the scars on your heart?

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At every Mass we hear the words, “…deliver us from all distress.” The Church understands that we tend to be anxious people, but the Lord doesn’t want us to live in distress. He wants us to rest in Him and be restored.

This afternoon, Fr. Martin used the life of St. Peter to identify four things we tend to focus on that cause us to lose our interior peace and experience distress.

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St. Therese of Lisieux wrote, “Prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned toward heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy.”

So, let’s get one thing out of the way. God is never over ‘there’ because ‘there’ implies distance. And He is never distant from us. He is here.  Therefore, we begin with a reality check that prayer is not us speaking into a void and hoping God is close enough to hear. Prayer is a response to our ever present Father who is paying attention and listening even before we begin to speak.

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“The secret of interior peace is seeing Jesus come to us in the midst of our distress. … We ask, ‘Do you see this Jesus?’ and He says, ‘I see you first.'”