This book quickly became the most scribbled-in, highlighted, earmarked, among my collection of recent books read. Marginalia galore! I’ll be referring back to this tiny paperback often, and only wish I had discovered it earlier on (if so, I’m convinced many of the mistakes of my past, struggles and strongholds would never have taken root). Fortunately, letting go and practicing the virtues of faith, hope and love, have helped narrow my path and resulted in a much-welcomed interior freedom (this book holds the keys for those seeking such).
The topic of Interior Growth has been a focus of my reading over the course of the past year, and Jacques Philippe’s Interior Freedom has scratched the itch, and then some. It’s a challenging task to pull together Reading Notes for this one, as there are so many highlights, from nearly every page. With that said, here are a few:
Reading Notes:
- We need to accept our limitations, but without ever resigning ourselves to mediocrity.
- To lock ourselves in the past would only add another sin to those already committed.
- The worst thing that could happen would be for everything to go exactly as we wanted it, for that would be the end of any growth.
- Human beings were created for love, and they can only find happiness in loving & being loved.
- Only love, then, can satisfy us; and there is no love without freedom. The kind of love that is the result of constraint, or self-interest, or the mere satisfaction of a need, does not deserve the name love.
- Think how badly we react to our falls, mistakes, and failures, how demoralized and upset we become, how guilty they make us feel. Only under the gaze of God can we fully and truly accept ourselves.
- There is no better form of “relaxation” than to rest like little children in the tenderness of a Father who loves us just as we are.
- Modern culture doesn’t rate forgiveness very highly. More often it justifies resentment & revenge. But does that reduce the amount of evil in the world? The only way to diminish the suffering that burdens mankind is by forgiveness.
- When we concentrate too much on something that isn’t right, and make it our main topic of conversation, we end up giving evil more substance than it has. Deploring evil sometimes only strengthens it.
- Hope means trusting. When we hope we are not passive; we are acting.
- Love is always a decision.
- The people who are supremely free desire nothing, and are afraid of nothing.
- Faith is the root of our cure and our liberation, the start of a life-giving process that heals the death engendered by sin.
- Our chief weapons are prayer, patience, and hope.
Read reviews or buy this book on Amazon
Disclaimer: These Reading Notes are not a replacement for reading the book — just a sampling of my personal notes, and potentially out of context.