"Practicing the Presence of God"

Recently, when I hit a “brick wall” put up by agents of the New World Order, these words came to mind, “Whoever abides in me, as I abide in him, bears much fruit; for cut off from me you can do nothing.” (Jn 15:5) The Lord is exactly right. We can get so caught up in recognizing and analyzing “the increase of lawlessness” that “love in most people will grow cold.” (Mt 24:12) It is more important to put time into relating with God than in trying to solve the problem by ourselves.

“Practicing the presence of God” is even more important for us when we are confronting the evil that is trying to destroy Christian civilization. In the brutality of Calvary, the image of St John and the Holy Women reminds us of gentility of the abiding love of the Lord. In fact this image is an ‘icon’ of Christian civilization in a hostile world.

The New Testament provides three approaches to abiding in Christ, one for the reflective mode, another for the active mode and the third for the endurance mode:

1. There is the heart-to-heart abiding in Jesus. We show Jesus what is happening in our hearts and we let his words permeate our hearts. (See Jn 15:1-17) This fits very well when we are meditating, or ‘day-dreaming’.
2. There is the step-by-step following of Jesus. We imitate what Jesus did, adapting it to our situation. Our pray is, “Jesus, give me the grace to do what you would do here.” (See Mark 8:34-35)
3. There is the beyond-the-horizon awareness of cosmic Christ that St Paul expresses, so well in the Colossians hymn (See Col 1:15-20; also 2 Cor 5:17). When we are simply enduring the overpowering force of the enemy, being aware that “in him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28) puts the enemy into perspective and maintains our communion with God.

Practicing the presence of God needs discipline. One exercise I do when I am walking is to set my mind to walk with Jesus to the next corner, then the next and then the next. (Distance runners will know what I am talking about.)

Another exercise is when I take a break, during the daily routine, I ask our Lord, “How am I doing?” Then I thank him when I have got it right or ask forgiveness when I got it wrong and then thank him.

Obviously when we “make the sign of the Cross” we are putting ourselves in God’s presence. And things like grace-before-meals should do the same.

It would be interesting to read of some of your practices.

An inspiration to many is a French lay-brother who lived in the 1600s. You can read about Brother Lawrence at http://www.catholictreasury.info/Presence/Default.htm

Ultimately practicing the presence of God is not about particular methods or techniques but an abiding relationship with the Blessed Trinity. Like any personal relationship, we have to work on it. So when we stand firm against the NWO we will “go out and bear the fruit that will last.” (Jn 15:16) There is no winning formula; but there is a winning relationship.