LIVE IT
Bring the Interior Life Into Ordinary Life
The pursuit of perfection must take concrete form in ordinary decisions. The interior life does not replace the active life. It directs, purifies, and gives supernatural fruitfulness to it.
The Principles and Practices help bring the path of the interior life into the way we use our time, pray, speak, judge, resist temptation, practice virtue, and fulfill the duties entrusted to us.
THE PROPER ORDER
The Interior Life and the Active Life
The interior life is the life of the soul with God. It grows through prayer, grace, recollection, and an increasing desire to know and follow His will. The active life consists of our visible work and responsibilities: serving our families, fulfilling our vocations, helping others, and completing the duties entrusted to us.
Both are necessary, but they must remain properly ordered. The interior life must guide the active life. Otherwise, we can become so occupied with what we are doing that we lose sight of why we are doing it and whether God is actually asking it of us.
A strong interior life purifies our motives and brings our actions into conformity with God's will. It helps us distinguish between what is genuinely ours to do and what merely distracts us from our vocation. It teaches us when to act, when to wait, when to speak, and when to remain silent.
As our union with God deepens, our active life becomes more purposeful and fruitful. Even ordinary duties can become acts of love offered in cooperation with His grace.
“The interior life does not replace the active life. It directs, purifies, and gives supernatural fruitfulness to it.”
THE PRINCIPLES
Bringing the Path Into Ordinary Life
The six principles bring the Path into ordinary life. Together, they keep spirituality from remaining abstract.
Time
Time asks whether our hours reveal that God is truly first.
Prayer
Prayer is the heart of the interior life and the first work that must be protected.
Silence
Silence guards recollection, restrains vain speech, and teaches us to listen before speaking.
Judgment
Judgment teaches the crucial difference between prudently assessing what is relevant and condemning a person's heart or character.
Trade
Trade recognizes temptation as an offered exchange: a present, imperfect good for a greater future good.
Virtue
Virtue forms stable habits of prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude, elevated by faith, hope, and charity.
CONCRETE DISCIPLINES
The Practices
The Practices give concrete direction for the pursuit of perfection.
Silence
Overall, speak less. Guard your tongue against gossip, boasting, deceit, and vainglory. Make time for silence. Unplug and learn to hear your inner thoughts, including how self-centered, prideful, defensive, and judgmental they can be.
Stop Judging Others
Except when judgment falls within your legitimate jurisdiction and is necessary for the good of others and the sake of fairness, attend first to your own sins and imperfections. Work on yourself and cooperate with God's grace. Regard others as more important than you. Humility is the antidote to judgment.
Trade
When faced with temptation, pray: "God of mercy and abundance, I trade the desired good of this temptation for your infinite gifts and joy in heaven." You are not truly giving anything up when you refuse to act on temptation. On the contrary, you are storing up treasure in heaven.
Pray
Learn how to pray. Do not assume you already know how. Spend at least thirty minutes in mental prayer each day. Meditate often on Christ's Passion. Tell Jesus often that you love Him. Remain close to Our Lady and ask for her intercession. Pray the Rosary daily.
Sacramental and Devotional Life
Remain close to Christ through Mass, Adoration, and Confession.
DEPEND ENTIRELY UPON GRACE
Beg God to Perfect Your Love
“Learn to beg God to make you love Him perfectly. Do not pray for this casually. Plead with Him earnestly and persistently, recognizing that only His grace can accomplish it in you.”
We cannot make ourselves perfect. Only God can accomplish this work within us. We must seek how He desires to purify and form us, and cooperate faithfully with what He asks.
PRACTICES TO PROTECT
Remain Close to Christ
Prayer is the most important practical work because every other reform depends upon living contact with God. Two practices deserve immediate protection: thirty minutes of mental prayer each day and the daily Rosary.
These practices do not replace the Mass, regular Confession, Scripture, obedience to the commandments, or the duties of one's state in life. They help us live all of those things with greater attention and love.
Mass
Work toward attending Mass daily. If you sincerely desire it, God will make possible what is possible. That is all you need.
Adoration
Make a Holy Hour or short visit whenever you can.
Confession
Go to Confession at least monthly, although weekly is best.
CONSISTENT FAITHFULNESS
Establish a Daily Rule of Prayer and Sacramental Life
A definite rule protects the interior life from drifting and gives prayer, the sacraments, study, and self-examination a deliberate place within ordinary life.
Pray for the desire of perfect love.
Depend entirely upon God's grace. Know that you cannot make yourself perfect. Seek how He desires to purify and form you, and cooperate faithfully with what He asks.
Commit to the Rosary every day and thirty minutes of mental prayer each day.
Beyond Sunday Mass, attend daily Mass as often as the duties of your state in life practically allow.
Go to Confession at least once each month. Return sooner after grave sin.
Study the path to perfection and examine whether charity, obedience, prayer, freedom from sin, and faithfulness to duty are growing.
As you advance, pray for and seek out a faithful spiritual director.
The rule must be lived faithfully within the duties of one's vocation and state in life. It is not meant to draw a person away from those duties, but to help fulfill them with greater attention and love.
THE NEXT FAITHFUL STEP
Stop Drifting and Begin Moving Deliberately Toward God
The interior life is formed through repeated acts of cooperation with grace: protecting prayer, returning to Confession, guarding the tongue and mind, rejecting temptation, fulfilling known duties, and choosing God's will over self-will.
Do not attempt to change everything through your own strength. Ask God what He desires to purify, respond to the grace He is offering now, and allow Him to bring the whole of your life under His direction.