Serenity

While waiting my turn for a haircut in a barbershop, I watched a tiny boy squirming and screaming in fear as he experienced his first haircut. The barber had a most difficult time doing a good job in cutting the child’s hair without making irregular cuts, as he carefully tried to avoid injuring the child. The father walked over to the barber chair and began to speak calmly and reassuringly to his little son. The father’s quiet composure and unruffled tone of voice with loving compliments brought the child to a state of serene nonresistance--to the barber’s great relief.

Like the child disturbed by the approach of the barber with scissors in his hand, we are often disturbed by imagined or even real threats in life. To attain the enviable state of true serenity in the midst of life’s vicissitudes, we need to attend to the loving assurances of our heavenly Father: “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret” (Ps 37:7).

When we are disturbed by the newness of a situation, or by outright fear, it’s difficult to be serene and quiet within our souls. Yet when our loving trust in him is steady, then serenity is the natural consequence, even amidst such unsettling situations. In the classic words of Richter, “How calmly may we commit ourselves to the hands of him who bears up the world!”

This excerpt is from the book Pathways of Trust, by John H. Hampsch,C.M.F., originally published by Servant Publications. It and other of Fr. Hampsch's books and audio/visual materials can be purchased from Claretian Teaching Ministry, 20610 Manhattan Pl, #120, Torrance, CA 90501-1863. Phone 1-310-782-6408.