Presence of God

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

The child whispered once, “God, speak to me.’
And a meadowlark sang. The child did not hear.

The child yelled, ‘God, speak to me!
And the thunder rolled across the sky. But the child did not listen.

The child looked around and said, ‘God, let me see you.’
And a star shone brightly. But the child did not notice.

And the child shouted, ‘God, show me a miracle!’
And a life was born, but the child did not know.

The child cried out in despair, ‘Touch me, God, let me know you are here!’
Whereupon God reached down
And touched the child.

But the child brushed the butterfly away
And walked away unknowingly
(Ravindra Kumar Karnani, And the Meadowlark Sang).

This meditation is about the presence of God in our life.

There was a priest and a professor in an ecclesiastical seminary in Rome. He’d been a popular professor of philosophy for almost thirty years. But he was also a very demanding professor.

He never missed a lecture, never relaxed the schedule, never gave his students free or half days, not even on special festivities or right before vacations.

One day he came to class, put his books on the table, smiled and announced, ‘Today we will not have class.’

The students were shocked. One tentatively raised his hand and asked, ‘Why not, Father?’

The priest answered, ‘Today I want to celebrate, because during my morning meditation, for the first time in thirty-five years, I felt the presence of God.’

For almost forty years, he was faithful to his daily prayer commitment without experiencing any consolation.

We know that God is close to us. “I am with you always, even until the end of the world” (Matt. 28:20).

The virtue of presence of God is the virtue whereby we remind ourselves that we are always in God's presence—with or without any consolations, whether or not we feel Him.

We know with faith that Our Heavenly Father is close to us at all moments.

“Can a woman forget her sucking child...that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you” (Isa. 49:15).

“Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!” (Ps. 34:8).

“The kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21).

In all sorts of ways, Our Father God reminds us that He's present to us all the time. He is present to us, but, as Ronald Knox says, the question is whether or not we are alive to Him, whether we notice Him, talk to Him, thank Him, appreciate His presence, and the things around us in nature.

“Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow or reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them” (Matt. 6:26).

When we receive supernatural grace in the sacraments, the Blessed Trinity comes to live in us in grace. We will “come and make our abode in him” (John 14:23).

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are continually within us. All we need to do is turn our gaze there.

St. Paul says, “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).

Pope St. John Paul II liked to say that in Christ we find the meaning and the purpose of our life. In turning to God frequently each day, we can find the meaning and the purpose of our life.

The Psalms say, “As the deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God?” (Ps. 42:1-2).

“O God, you are my God, I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land, where no water is” (Ps. 63:1).

The Old Testament and the New Testament are full of these petitions or reminders that God is all around us and that we need Him.

In one of his encyclicals, Pope St. John Paul II says that there is a hole in the human heart, a chasm in the human heart, that can only be filled by God.

“I stretch out my hands to you,” says the Old Testament, “my soul thirsts for you like a parched land. Make haste to answer me, O Lord; my spirit fails. Hide not your face from me” (Ps. 143:6-7).

We could try to make a resolution to be more aware of the presence of God in the ordinary things of each day, when we know He's waiting for us in those ordinary things that He gives us to do.

Growth in friendship with God requires interior recollection. The presence of the three divine Persons in our souls in grace is a living presence, which is open to our friendship: they are inviting us to get to know them and to love them. It's up to us to correspond.

St. Augustine says, “Why climb the mountains or go down into the valleys of the world looking for him who dwells within us?” (St. Augustine, De Trinitate).

St. Gregory tells us, “As long as our mind is giddy with carnal images, it will never be able to contemplate...because there are as many obstacles blinding it as there are thoughts pulling it here and there. Hence, for the soul to contemplate the invisible nature of God, the first step must be: let it be recollected within itself” (St. Gregory the Great, Homilies on Ezechiel).

We turn to our soul, to our heart, we find God within, and having that spirit of finding God within, we can also find Him without, because “there is something…divine, hidden in the most ordinary human reality” (cf. Josemaría Escrivá, Conversations, Point 114).

God may ask some people to withdraw from the world to achieve that recollection. But for the majority of Christians—housewives, students, employees—He wants us to find Him in the midst of our daily activities, and to achieve that recollection there.

A young married lady told me once how their young child was getting to the stage of three or four or so, and Christmas was coming. She decided that it was time to have a crib in their home. So she got a small little crib for their flat.

Then the little child came along and took the different pieces of the crib and began to deposit them all over the house. She found St. Joseph under the couch, she found Our Lady behind the curtains, she found the angels in the bedroom, the shepherds were somewhere else.

Little by little she was able to repossess all these little pieces of the crib. But she couldn't find the baby Jesus. She looked high up and low down, but baby Jesus was nowhere to be found.

A day or two later, she said, “I opened the washing machine and there was the baby Jesus sitting on top of the washing.”

She said, “It struck me in that moment that the Holy Spirit was speaking to me. I've been to many recollections and retreats where I learned a lot of formation. One of the ideas that I often heard was that we have to find God in the ordinary things of each day.

“When I saw the baby Jesus sitting on top of the washing, I thought, this is the message that the Holy Spirit is saying to me. This is where I have to find God each day.”

Then she wondered, How on earth did the baby Jesus get into the washing machine? She realized that her son had put the baby Jesus into the pocket of his trousers. The trousers went to the wash and out came the baby Jesus in the wash.

We keep our senses for God by means of ongoing mortification throughout the day. It's also the way to interior contentment. We find peace in the things of God.

We mortify our imagination by putting aside useless thoughts; our memory, by not entertaining memories that don't bring us closer to God; our will, by fulfilling our schedule of work and our duties, however small they may be.

Concentrated work, if it's offered to God, not only does not obstruct our conversation with God, but rather, facilitates it. The same applies to our external activities: social relations, family life, leisure time, journeys.

Everything in life—except when superficiality predominates—has a profound, intimate dimension. It takes on that dimension when we are recollected and brings it into our friendship with God.

Recollection means ‘bringing together what was scattered,’ reestablishing interior order, controlling our senses as they tend towards dispersion, even in things which are good or indifferent.

It means having God as the center of our intentions in what we're doing and planning.

The opposite to interior recollection is dissipation and superficiality. In The Way we're told, “Dissipation—You stake your senses and faculties in whatever pool you meet on the way. And you can feel the results: unsettled purpose, scattered attention, deadened will, and quickened concupiscence. Subject yourself once again to a serious plan that will make you lead a Christian life, or you will never do anything worthwhile” (J. Escrivá, The Way, Point 375).

Unless we're recollected, we cannot pay attention to God in the ordinary things of each day. The more we purify our heart and our senses, the more recollected we are, the more our soul will long for contact with God, “like the deer that yearns for running streams” (cf. Ps. 42:1).

We're told in Friends of God, “Our heart then needs to distinguish and adore each one of the divine Persons. The soul is, as it were, making a discovery in the supernatural life, like an infant opening his eyes to the world about him. The soul spends time lovingly with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and readily submits to the work of the life-giving Paraclete, who gives himself to us without any merit on our part” (J. Escrivá, Friends of God, Point 306).

Our refuge and our strength lie in the love of God, expressed in the ordinary things of each day. I read an article once written by a housewife who talked about how to sanctify our home life. She talked about how she would get her children and her husband off to work in the morning. I think there were eight children.

When they were all gone off to school and to work, she would breathe a sigh of relief, clear away the breakfast table, clean up the kitchen a little bit, and then go upstairs to make some beds.

She said, “Every step of the stair is an opportunity for me to tell God how much I love Him.”

That’s living presence of God in the ordinary things of each day, and using human reminders or human situations to remind us of God's presence. Because we are creatures of matter and spirit, we need material things to remind us often of the spiritual things.

On His way to the Holy City, we're told, Jesus stops for a moment to express His disappointment at its rejection of His message: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem...How often I would have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood, but you did not want” (Luke 13:34).

Our Lord emphasizes how we have to want. We have to go in that direction, make definite resolutions.

A farmer in Canada once said how there was a fire on his farm, and he was surveying the damage some time later. He came across a chicken that had been cooked in the fire in the middle of the farmyard. Obviously, the chicken was cooked to a cinder.

He gave it a good kick, and out from underneath the chicken ran four or five little chicks. Suddenly, he remembered this phrase of Scripture. He understood it with greater depth. “How often I would have gathered you as a hen gathers her brood.”

The chicken saw the danger, gathered her chicks, and gave her life in the process so that her chicks would live.

Jesus watches over us from the tabernacle. He's alert to the dangers that threaten us. He's ever ready to cure our wounds. He continually shares His life with us. He's our refuge and our strength.

The Psalmist says, “Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings” (Ps. 17:8).

“For you are my refuge, a strong tower against the enemy. Let me dwell in your tent forever! Oh, to be safe under the shelter of your wings!” (Ps. 61:3-4).

It's a very good thing to try and have little aspirations, little phrases, that suit us for different situations or places, our feelings, our ups and downs, that can lead us to pray. They can be phrases from well-known prayers, like “our sweetness and our hope”—a phrase we find in the Hail, Holy Queen.

It could be a phrase from some words of the Mass: “Do not look on my sins, O Lord, but on the faith of your children.” “Lord, have mercy, Christ have mercy.”

They could be some aspiration to Our Lady: Queen of peace, Help of Christians, Refuge of sinners, Morning Star.

Other little phrases that may come to mind, or words that might jump up out of the page as we do our spiritual reading or follow the Mass—the Holy Spirit will be speaking to us.

He'll help us to find those words or phrases that we can use as a means of prayer during the day, that come from the depth of our soul. In this way we can stay close to Our Lord in our earthly life.

At the close of that life, He will be Our Judge and Our Friend. He'll remember helping us all the time from the tabernacle.

Our Lord has wanted to remain present throughout the world, so that we might seek Him more readily for friendship and assistance, and turn to Him in all sorts of moments.

“If we're suffering pain and discomfort, He will lighten our burden and comfort us”—perhaps reminding us that whatever we might suffer in this world, He has been there before. “And a sword has pierced His Mother's heart” (cf. Luke 2:35).

“If we succumb to illness, He will either provide a remedy, or He will give us the strength to suffer it for the sake of eternal life”—to offer up in that moment that pain, or that difficulty, or that piece of bad news, or that contradiction, or that broken heart.

“If we find ourselves at war with the devil and our passions, He'll supply us with arms for the battle, so that we can resist and ultimately be victorious.” Virgin most faithful, Comforter of the afflicted, Mother of mercy.

“If we are poor, He will enrich us with all kinds of good things in this life and in eternity” (St. Jean Vianney, Sermon on Maundy Thursday).

We need to make resolutions to seek His company every single day. From the moment we wake up, even before we get out of bed, our first thought can be a thought for God:

‘Thank you, Lord, for the sleep that you gave me. Thank you for the fact that I have a bed to lie down in, a pillow to put my head on, and a roof over my head. Thank you for this new day. I offer it to you.’

And the same thing as we lie down in bed at night. It can be a good moment to repeat the morning offering, offering to Our Lord those last minutes or seconds of this gift of a day that He has given to us.

Our determination to live as children of God should be expressed in ordinary life: at work, at home, among our friends. In every hour of the day, we should be striving to be men and women of faith. Full-time Christians.

We don't just confine our relationship with God to the few moments that we may spend inside a church. We live out our friendship with God in our workplace, in our rest and recreation, in social gatherings. We reflect Christ's love in everything we do.

St. Paul says, “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all for the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31).

A lady who was not a Catholic—but later became one—heard that phrase in a class one time. She felt the Holy Spirit speaking to her. “Doing everything for the glory of God.” She said, ‘Really. that's what the spirit of Opus Dei is all about.’

Then she told me that after the class she went out to her car, and it was in a bit of a mess. She thought, ‘I better start with my car—clean up the inside a little bit so it reflects more the glory of God.’

Then she went to her office. She was a lawyer. And as often happens in lawyers’ offices, her files were all over the place. She put them back in their proper place.

Her secretary came in and wondered what earthquake in reverse has hit this place. She found everything in such order. She told her, ‘I'm trying to do everything for the glory of God.’

Then she went home that night, and she said, ‘Every night I would watch the news with my husband. Halfway through the news, he would ask me to get him a cup of tea. Very grudgingly, I would go downstairs to make a cup of tea. But this time I had it ready for him. He asked me, What's happened? What's come over you?’

She said, ‘I'm doing everything for the glory of God.’

St. Basil says, “When you sit down at table, pray. When you eat your bread, give thanks to God who is so generous. If you have some wine, remember that he has created it to bring us merriment and comfort in affliction.

“When you're getting dressed, give thanks to the one who gave you these clothes. When you look up at the firmament and behold the beauty of the stars above, fall down at the feet of God and adore his infinite Wisdom that is manifest in all Creation.

“Do the same at sunrise and sunset, when you're asleep and when you're awake. Give thanks to God who created all this wonder for your benefit, so that you might know, love and praise his name” (St. Basil, Homilia in Julittam maritem).

All the noble realities should serve to bring us to the Lord.

And if some nights you can't sleep well, have recourse to your presence of God. Pray a little more. One saint used to say, ‘Last night I slept a little less, but I prayed a little more.’

As you move around with your children, try and teach them to live in the presence of God: to give thanks for this and thanks to God for that; to say the grace before meals, or the Angelus, or other little aspirations that they come across, so that they learn to pray and learn to realize where everything comes from.

Confucius, the Chinese philosopher, says, “When you drink water, remember the source.” As Christians in the middle of the world we have a lot of sources to remember.

Someone in love thinks of their beloved twenty-hour hours a day. That's the kind of love we should try to have for Jesus Christ. It should constitute the essence of our being, the driving force behind all our actions.

He is Our One and Only Lord. He is the one we want to glorify through our work well done. Jesus is our inspiration when we try to practice the social doctrine of the Church, when we strive to protect the environment.

This all-embracing outlook leads a Christian to make an effort to be cordial and optimistic, to be punctual at work, to make good use of time, to overcome temptations to laziness.

If our love of God is authentic, it will shine out from and be appreciable in every aspect of our existence.

The Lord does not distance Himself from us. He wants us to live in His presence.

We're told at the scene of the Transfiguration: “Immediately a cloud overshadowed them” (cf. Mark 9:7). It's a reminder of that other cloud that accompanied the presence of God in the Old Testament: “Then the cloud,” we're told in the Book of Exodus, “covered the tent of meeting, and the glory…filled the tabernacle” (Ex. 40:34).

It was the sign of divine intervention. “And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Lo, I am coming to you in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with you, and may believe you forever’” (Ex. 19:9).

At Mount Tabor, that cloud overshadows Christ, and the powerful voice of God the Father is heard coming from it: “This is my Son, my Chosen, listen to him” (Luke 9:35).

God the Father speaks through Jesus Christ to men of all ages. His voice is heard in every age, in a particular way through the teaching of the Church, who, as John Paul says in his encyclical, “The Redeemer of Man,” his first encyclical, “continually seeks ways of bringing this mystery of her Master and Lord to humanity—to the peoples, the nations, the succeeding generations, and every individual human being” (John Paul II, Redemptor hominis, March 4, 1979).

We can detect when the Holy Spirit is speaking to us. When certain words or phrases of other people, or something we read, strikes us in a special way, or something we hear in some preaching, somehow, it’s engraved in our soul.

Things we remember a few days later—this is the Holy Spirit speaking to us, things He wants us to remember, like a divine call.

Every time our phone rings, I can think of it as a divine call, a human reminder to think of God at this particular moment. Or each time we walk into a room, or each time we see an image of Our Lady, or each time we go through a traffic light—this is the ordinary life that God wants us to sanctify.

He wants us to find Him in the street, in the hustle and bustle, in the people around us.

We have to find Him when He forgives us in the Sacrament of Penance and, above all, in Holy Communion, where He is really, truly, and substantially present.

Normally, Our Lord doesn't show Himself to us with any special manifestations. He wants us to seek Him out—“Seek and you will find” (Matt. 7:7)—in the ordinary, everyday things.

Our God is a God of consolation. Occasionally, by our side, we realize that He gives us consolations that can only have come from Him.

The Book of Wisdom says, “She hastens to make herself known to those who desire her” (Wisd. 6:13).

He grants us the grace sometimes of feeling His presence. He desires that we should speak to Him as your most beloved friend. Tell Him about your feelings. One saint used to say, “Lord, I'm fed up. I'm tired.” We share with Him the deep things that are going on in our heart.

“Without waiting for you to come close to him, he hastens towards you,” we’re told, “when you seek his love, and he presents himself to you, granting you the graces and remedies that you need. He only waits for one word from you in order to show you that he is beside you and wants to listen to you and console you” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, How to Converse with God).

We're told in the Psalms, “His ears are towards their cry” (Ps. 34:15).

Our Lady and St. Joseph lived continuously in the presence of God. They were alive to God in everything they did. They listened to the angels. They responded. Living in the presence of God is hope.

We could ask the Holy Family that they may teach us also to be attentive to the voice of God as He speaks to us in the ordinary things of each day, and that we might respond in that same wholehearted way that Joseph and Mary did.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

MVF