“While you are proclaiming peace with your lips, be careful to have it even more fully in your heart.”
~St. Francis of Assisi
Reflection:
There is a kind of peace we learn to speak before we learn to live it. We say the right words. We offer calm responses. We present ourselves as composed, gentle, and steady. Yet beneath the surface, the waters of the heart can remain restless, unsettled, even divided.
St. Francis reminds us that peace is not meant to be performed but embodied. It is not something we declare into a room; it is something that quietly radiates from within us. The peace we proclaim with our lips must first be planted, tended, and grown in the soil of the heart. Otherwise, our words become hollow echoes of something we have not yet allowed God to form in us.
True peace is costly. It asks us to forgive when we would rather defend. To soften when we would rather harden. To listen when we would rather speak. It calls us to notice the subtle wars within ourselves — the quiet resentments, the hidden anxieties, the small judgments we carry — and to bring them gently before God.
This interior work is slow and often unseen. But when peace takes root in the heart, it changes the way we move through the world. Our words no longer try to create peace; they simply reveal the peace already living within us.
Question for Meditation:
Where in my life am I speaking words of peace that I have not yet allowed God to fully cultivate in my heart?
Related Scripture:
“Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body.” — Colossians 3:15
For Further Reading: If you enjoyed this post, you may also like Choosing the Better Part: Being a Contemplative in an Activist World
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