“Hold your horses!”: The need to grow in interiority

I do not presume to say this is a tendency of all women (neither am I saying that men can’t make mountains out of molehills too!:)

Some people come out of the womb with naturally easy-going personalities. But I think that truly steady hearts are grown by progressing in the spiritual life. Those souls get to the point that they can reign in their thoughts and allow “the peace of Christ which surpasses all understanding to guard their hearts and minds.” 

Blessed John Paul II, whose showed over and over again in life and writing that he honored, respected and maybe understood women maybe better than we ourselves, said once that women, especially, need to grow in interiority,  to be “women of prayer.” 

I’ve been learning more about this interiority stuff. I am learning that interiority is not a lofty, exclusive, pie-in-the-sky goal only for the likes of saints and religious. It’s for us Everyday Folk too. It’s not about “keeping everything bottled up inside.” It is not about being scrupulous or unhealthily turned inward on ourselves.

Interiority is about becoming a woman of prayer and pondering–like Mary was. The Bible tells us that at the most pivotal, confusing, and important points in Mary’s life, she simply “pondered all these things in her heart.” Always, our Blessed Mother was receptive, trusting, accepting and hopeful. No matter what.

I was at a talk recently in which the priest reminded us that both sin and sanctity begin in our thoughts. I had never thought about it like that before. It makes so much sense to me to focus on how to reign in my thoughts and emotions. It makes sense, knowing my tendency to worry or to work myself into anger and bitterness sometimes, to learn how to throw out the trash and let in the treasure of the Holy Spirit’s counsel and grace–before I lose sight of Heaven because I have turned so far inward onto myself.

“You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in You.” ~Isaiah 26:3