V+J
Authenticity seems to be a much pursued characteristic of our times. But as Father Raniero Cantalemessa, Capuchin, remarks in his recent Lenten sermon, it depends on a deep interior life. Visitandines, and Salesians of every type know that our Founder and Patron, St Francis de Sales, was a master of living and encouraging an interior life.
Fr Cantalemessa quotes St. Augustine, the “grandfather” of the Visitation 
Order, which follows his monastic rule: “Re-enter your heart! Where do you want to go, far from yourself? Re-enter from your wandering which has led you outside the way; return to the Lord. He is quick. First re-enter into your heart, you who have become a stranger to yourself, because of your wandering outside: you do not know yourself, and seek him who has created you!
“Thus”, Fr. Cantalemessa continues, “the heart indicates the spiritual place, where one can contemplate the person in his most profound and true reality, without veils and without pausing on externals. …To return to the heart means, therefore, to return to what is most personal and interior to us. Unfortunately, interiority is a value in crisis.
Inwardness is the way to an authentic life. There is so much talk today of authenticity and it is made the criterion of success or lack thereof in life. However, where is authenticity for a Christian? When is it that a person is truly himself? Only when he has God as his measure.”
Now let’s summarize St Francis de Sales’ disposition to this inwardness. A recent course description put it this way: “St. Francis does not speak of “spirituality” but of “interior life.” It is here that the soul meets the Creator in prayer.
To be more precise, Francis does not speak of “life” as much as he does of “space.”
Interiority is not a tiny place within, but a profound place. The human soul and spirit make up a whole new world!
In describing interiority and the soul’s relationship with God, Francis describes a spiritual topography, with peaks and valleys. Space and structure are needed for interior life, but not in a static way. More than terrain to survey, interiority presupposes a path to be taken…”
In fact this path is prayer, inward recollection. In his Introduction to the Devout Life, St Francis de Sales gives this example in his chapter on Spiritual Recollection:
“When the father or mother of St. Catherine of Siena had deprived her of a place and leisure to pray and meditate, our Lord inspired her to make a little oratory within her soul, into which, retiring mentally, she might, amidst her everyday affairs, attend to this holy mental solitude ; and when the world afterwards assaulted her, she received no in convenience from it, because, as she said, she had shut herself up in her interior closet, where she comforted herself with her heavenly Spouse. From her own experience of this exercise, she afterwards counseled her spiritual children to make a room within their hearts, and to abide therein.”
The exercise of inward prayer, recollection, stillness and simplicity can truly lead to a change of our life, wholly, entirely, both inner and outer. St Francis de Sales recommended this approach to improvement in the Introduction:
“For my part, Philothea, I could never approve of the method of those who,’ to reform a man begin with his exterior, such as his gestures, his dress, or his hair. On the contrary, I think we ought to begin with his interior : ‘Be converted to me, with your whole heart ‘* (Joel,ii.) Son, give me thine heart.” (Pro v. xxiii.) For the heart being the genuine source of our actions, our works will be always such as our heart is. The Divine Spouse inviting the soul : ** Put me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thy arm.” (Can tic.lev.)
Yes, truly ; for whosoever has Jesus Christ in his heart will quickly show Him in all his exterior actions.”
Heart imagery abounds once again in this example.
From start to finish, an interior life is a life lived from the heart, from your own, personal heart. A heart that lets itself be quieted and stilled, and in fact that depends on the Sacred Heart of Jesus for its every beat.
May this authentic heart grow more profoundly within you this Lent!
References: http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/father-cantalamessa-s-1st-lent-homily-2014