Bootstrapping the Interior Life

This is a the first post in a series that appeared on my old blog (with minor differences) some time back. I intend to re-post the series here, one post a week, for the next few months.

The interior life is an essential part of Christian discipleship, one that I’ve been learning about over the last few years, and I find that I’ve got a few things to say about it and how to embark upon it—though I hasten to add that I’m no expert. I don’t intend to be in any way exhaustive; I simply intend to talk about things I’ve learned and things that have worked for me. Your mileage, as they say, may vary; and if something that worked for me doesn’t work for you, so be it. If everyone was exactly like me, the world would be a very strange place.

So what is the “interior life”? The Wikipedia page on the interior life defines it as follows:

Interior life is a life which seeks God in everything, a life of prayer and the practice of living in the presence of God. It connotes intimate, friendly conversation with Him, and a determined focus on internal prayer versus external actions, while these latter are transformed into means of prayer.

I wouldn’t have put it quite that way (or nearly so well); I’d simply say that my interior life is my life with Jesus. Being a Christian isn’t simply a way to live or a set of things to believe; it’s learning to live with Jesus. And by the nature of things much of that is inside, where it can’t be seen.

The interior life is something we are all called to; it’s part of the “universal call to holiness” described in Lumen Gentium. But until you’ve begun to experience it, it’s hard to know just what it means, or how to get started with it. Hence this series of posts.

I don’t claim to be more than a beginner. But according to St. Jose Maria Escriva, the interior life consists in beginning and beginning again. So let’s begin.